Recording Food

[WinTheDay848]

I have a question concerning recording and tracking my food:

I went out to Chinese food this weekend at I had a two bites of Sweet and Sour Chicken, three bites of Broccoli Beef and one bite of Orange Chicken, and bite of Fried Rice.

I tend to eat a lot like this, and I'm at complete loss how to track this.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your time!

[SunsetRunner]

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@WinTheDay848 wrote:

I have a question concerning recording and tracking my food:

I went out to Chinese food this weekend at I had a two bites of Sweet and Sour Chicken, three bites of Broccoli Beef and one bite of Orange Chicken, and bite of Fried Rice.

I tend to eat a lot like this, and I'm at complete loss how to track this.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your time!

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Since there are no foods listed in "bites" you will need need to estimate how

many ounces or tablespoons are in your size of "bite", and record it that way.

[WhiteHusky1975]

^^^^^ Agreed. Sounds like you perhaps had 5-6 ounces total.

Please tell me you eat like this frequently throughout the day. Because unless your "bites" are HUGE that is a very low calorie intake for that meal.

Anyway, all that aside, estimate your ounces or tablespoons/teaspoons of each food as was suggested above. Ask for a spoon to go with your fork and keep a mental note of how many teaspoons/tablespoons you ate. This will help you achieve a decent ballpark estimate.

[WinTheDay848]

Thanks for the ideas, and solutions! I love the idea of asking for a spoon, that makes total sense to me!

Yes, the "bites" and frequency depends on my day, schedule and where I'm at, and if I'm at work. More often than not, it's throughout my day, or multiple times a day.

Thanks for you all your help so far! I'm a newb so any suggestions are very helpful!

[kelfran]

I have the same answer as above - estimate your bite size. Instead of estimating tablespoons or ounces, I generally look at the total amount eaten in terms of cups, as I find this easier.

Also, I know you didn't specifically ask this, but I use MyFitnessPal to track my food. They have many more food choices (everything I can think of is in there, plus variations) and you can link your Fitbit and MFP accounts to update each other automatically. Hope this helps!

[WhiteHusky1975]

@kelfran, I've been meaning to ask someone aobut this, so I'm glad you brought it up. I've heard a lot about My Fitness Pal, but I haven't downloaded it and have never used it. I've been inputting all my food info into my Fitbit. I know My Fitness Pal links to Fitbit, but are there any real benefits to My Fitness Pal that the Fitbit doesn't offer? What are the reasons you use it as opposed to just using your Fitbit to handle this function?

I know you mentioned there are more food choices to select. So far I haven't really had any difficult with the options available to me on my Fitbit. Any other benefits besides that that make it more useful?

[WinTheDay848]

^^^ I have also been wondering the same thing!!!???

[kelfran]

A couple of things that I like:

1. I can create recipes in MFP. For instance, I make my own granola and eat it almost every morning for breakfast. I entered the recipe once and now the complete nutrition is at my fingertips each morning when I enter it. Also, if you find a recipe on a website, you can import it and MFP figures out the ingredients and nutrition info for you. (Not flawless, but pretty darn good.) 

2. Speaking of nutrition, MFP seems to give me more nutrition info. I can track sugar, sodium, fiber, Vit A, Vit C, fats, cholesterol, iron, calcium, etc. each day and...

3. generate reports of my nutrients, calories burned, exercise minutes, etc. over the past 7, 30 or 90 days.   I can also track my weight and measurements over the past year. I don't have Fitbit Premium, so I like this.

4. The activity database and food database seem to be larger. There can be difference between prepared foods of two brands and MFP has an enormous database so you can find the exact brand/flavor/etc. of whatever you are eating. The exercise database isn't quite huge, but more extensive than the options I've found on Fitbit.

These are a few things off the top of my head. Maybe if I had the premium version of Fitbit, I would have some more features and not use MFP as much, but I don't know.

[WinTheDay848]

@kelfran That's super helpful information! Thank you! Now, I just have to figure out have to sync everything!

[kelfran]

There is a MFP group specifically for Fitbit users where you can find the instructions. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users 

[KikiT]

@WhiteHusky1975 Hi - I have been using My Fitness Pal for a long time.  I recently started using Fitbit and have linked my accounts.  The thing Fitbit is missing (and pls let me know if there is a way to track this) is, MFP takes into consideration how many calories you burn for the day and adjusts how many calories you should be taking in accordiingly.  So if I sent my caloric intake goal to 1200 and burn 400 at spin, it then raises my goal to 1600.  I don't see that FP does that.  Am I missing it?  Anyway, that's the only difference I see between the two...

[WhiteHusky1975]

That's a nice difference @KikiT.  Thanks for that information. You are correct: FitBit does not do that.

[DGM416]

Fitbit does add if you burn over. My calories are set around 2000 normally but if I have a hard work out, fitbit knows what I have burned and adds that to my count. So on days that I am more active is shows my avaliable calories as more.

[WhiteHusky1975]

Really? Mine shows me how many calories I burn but does not increase the amount of calories I can take it. I have it set to 1,800 calories and it stays there regardless of whether I lay on the couch all day or workout like a champ and burn 3,000 calories. Is there a setting someplace where you turn this function on?

[DGM416]

I am not sure if the dashboards are different for the different products but I have the Charge HR. Under my food plan I have it personalized. One tile I have is my calories to burn in a day never changes even when I go over but the tile that says calories left to eat does change as I work out or am active. I did nothing special to set this up, it was just there when I started

[WhiteHusky1975]

Hmmm. I also have the Charge HR. Mine doesn't do that. Wonder if there's a malfunction with mine?

[DGM416]

Did you do a custom food plan when you set yours up?

[WinTheDay848]

@WhiteHusky1975 I have the fitbit flex, although I'm still a little bit of a newb, I've notice that My caloric intake goes up when I work out, and tells me I can eat more calories.

[WhiteHusky1975]

@DGM416, no I didn't set up a custom plan. I clicked on the "I know how many calories I want to eat" button and arbitrarily entered 1,800 since I was in weight loss mode at that time.

So if I go back in and click the custom plan it will adjust how many calories I can eat to keep my weight the same? Sweet!

I still have 8 pounds to lose. Once I'm where I want to be I'll make the switch so I can eat more 🙂

Thanks!