Tools for Tracking Food
Having read about the benefits of calorie tracking in my previous post, you may be wondering where to start with the food tracking process. Luckily, all you need to physically buy in order to accurately start tracking your food is a digital food scale. Digital scales tend to be much more accurate, so simply google “Digital food scale” and select one (with positive reviews). Personally, I don’t believe there is any need to overspend on a digital food scale. You won’t need to spend more than £10 on this, so save yourself some money!
How to Track Food
Once you’ve purchased your digital food scale, there are a few things to consider (before you start weighing) that will help improve the accuracy and consistency of your measurements. When following recipes online, you’ll often see that recommended measurements use “cups” as a metric, which can produce very different values depending on the food item, how you pack the food into the cup, and whether the cup is level or not. When you visualise stuffing one cup with spinach vs chicken breast, you can imagine how the weight of those cups will be considerably different. Therefore, it’s advisable to always weigh foods where possible in the metric of your choice. I for example, always choose to weigh foods in grams (g) to keep everything consistent. Additionally, the weight of foods can change in an uncooked vs cooked state, so I’d also recommend being consistent with how you way foods (either weighing all foods in their uncooked state or weighing all foods in their cooked state).
Choose an App to Track the Nutrients in Your Food
Once you have come around to the idea of tracking your food intake for a period of time, you’ll benefit from selecting a calorie tracking app of your choice. Healthline has a great article reviewing 8 of the best calorie counter apps, but personally I’ve only every used MyFitnessPal which is one of the most popular calorie counters out there today and has the largest online food database available (3). MyFitnessPal can be accessed via the app on your smartphone, and therefore is extremely convenient especially when you find yourself outside of you comfort zone (e.g., eating out or travelling abroad). You can find ready-made food products, scan barcodes on food items (with the premium version) and find uncooked/cooked foods in the database which allows you to be as accurate as possible. The MyFitnessPal app is available to download for free on iOS and Android, and for most users looking to track calories and keep a food diary with ease, the free MyFitnessPal account will work nicely.
Final Note on Alternative Methods
For those new to tracking calories, just starting out on their health and fitness journeys, I’d highly recommend following the above steps initially combined with a consistent resistance training program (2-3 workouts a week) before pursuing alternative methods of calorie tracking that take a bit more work and dedication. The MyFitnessPal calculator uses the Mifflin-St. Jeor equations to estimate your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which is believed to be more reliable and accurate than the Harris-Benedict equation (4). The shortcomings of these conventional methods of determining total daily caloric needs, “lie in its subjectivity and lack of precision (2., p.212).” I’ll dive into more individualised methods of estimating calorie needs on another post, but for beginners the above guide will be a great starting point in your pursuit of weight loss maintenance.
References
1. Helms. E (2019). The Muscle & Strength Pyramid: Nutrition.
2. Aragon. A (2022). Flexible Dieting: A Science Based, Reality-Tested Method For Achieving & Maintaining Your Optimal Physique, Performance & Health. Victory Belt Publishing INC.
3. Healthline. (2023). 9 Best Calorie Counters and Apps to Help You Lose Weight. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/best-calorie-counters#our-picks
4. My Fitness Pal. (2023). BMR Calculator. Retrieved from https://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculato
