My Fitness Pal

  About a week after I had my youngest daughter, last July,  I had noticed that I had lost 25 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. I decided I should take this loss as a head start to losing more on my own. I knew that I was one of few people that were very lucky to actually lose weight while being pregnant. I had already starting thinking about eating better regularly and working out a few days before I had my daughter.  After having her I was really anxious on how much weight I had actually lost because she was 9 lbs 2 oz and I was hoping it was about 20lbs. I knew that would give me a push to keep going. Then, I found out about My Fitness Pal.

                                                                    using an iphone app

I was talking to my friend about how to go about losing weight with tracking as she was on Weight Watchers. She told me that a few of her friends had been using My Fitness Pal. She said it was similar to tracking on weight watchers except you track calories instead of points. I decided to try that out first because I liked how it was free.

                                     
                                                                    using your pc

I signed up online, entered my weight, height, my goal weight and how much I wanted to lose a week. It gave me an amount of calories I should consume in a day. I didn't start working out right away as I had just had a baby 3 weeks before and they say you shouldn't work out until about 6 weeks after. Since it was the middle of summer and busy with 3 kids I decided to wait 8 weeks so my oldest had started back to school.
During the first 6 weeks of tracking I honestly could not believe some of the foods that were high in calories. Foods that the "media" claimed were healthy were far from it. Even certain salads were extremely high in calories. It took a couple weeks but I finally found meals that were lower in calories. I'm not interested in "diet" foods that taste horrible. I searched pinterest in hopes I would find something. I found so many recipes that my family loves and keep you full and are low in calories. I will be posting about more recipes in the future. If you haven't seen it I had a post about Spinach, Feta Turkey burgers. If you haven't read it click here. .

                                                     an idea of what your daily journal looks like

What I love about My Fitness Pal is you can add everything you eat to it to monitor your calorie intake for the day. The database has almost everything you would eat in it even some restaurant foods. You can also get an app for your phone. If using an android or iphone there's an option that you can scan barcodes of products instead of searching. You can also create your own recipes instead of putting in each ingredient all the time. It will also tell you your carbs, sugar, protein, sodium and more amounts for the day. There are also a community tab that it you use your pc you can post or comment on topics. I don't go on them but I know people who do. You can also add your friends. Which is good for encouragement.  The app is also easily integrated with many of the popular fitness tracking apps out there (including pedometers and heart rate monitors).

So far I have had a lot of success using My Fitness Pal. I made my husband sign up in the middle of September and I'm so proud of how much weight he has lost. If you would like to try it out click here. It is completely FREE. If you would like you can add me by my email jenn_s83@hotmail.com. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.