For the Record: Starting a Food Log

Leaving Morocco meant a change of scenery, but it also meant adjusting to a completely different lifestyle.

In Rabat, I had four meals per day, plopped on the table in front of me with no question as to what I wanted and no required thought on my part.

Now I have to feed myself, and let’s be honest: so far, it hasn’t been a pretty sight. Goldfish crackers, PBJ and cookie dough ice cream are staples of my diet. It doesn’t help that I’ve yet to get my first paycheck, so grocery shopping means watching my balance shrink and shrink.

Fortunately, I found this wonderful place called “Trader Joe’s,” where I can buy anything from sushi to frozen corn to  organic carrot sticks for amazing prices. With my cabinets and fridge full of food, I thought my work was basically done. NOT.

Turns out you have to actually keep track of what you’re putting in your body and how much you’re exercising, if you want to live better. On top of that general guideline, my doctor recently put me on a strict diet, because of the damage my GI track sustained thanks to the infection I contracted in Morocco. So in a matter of weeks, I’ve had to go from an apathetic eater to a conscious consumer.

That’s where MyFitnessPal comes in.

It’s a website that combines my two favorite things: social media and food. The main idea is to log your foods and exercise for the day, and it calculates your nutritional intake as well as what you’re lacking.

What I like about it: I can be very specific with the foods I log. Instead of putting in “peanut butter sandwich,” I can log two pieces of Market Pantry Enriched White Bread and two tbsp of Skippy Chunky Peanut Butter. That makes it more accurate than many sites I’ve seen.

What I don’t like: The exercise calculator seems questionable to me. Did I really walk 3.0 mph for my entire walk from Loehmann’s to Chipotle last night? How about between the Metro and the Travel Clinic? I have no choice but to guesstimate. (My friend, Tess, doesn’t have this problem. With her iPhone, she can track how long she walks/runs and her speed, so no guesstimation for her!)

I also don’t love how diet-centric the site is. My purposes are more for keeping track, not for losing weight, but the message boards and inspirational phrases on site all revolve around shedding pounds.

Something to think about: The site says people who diet with friends are more likely to lose weight. Translate that to people with healthy friends are healthier themselves. It makes sense to me — Tess was the one to tell me about the site in the first place. To help users be inspired by their friends (or incite a little healthy competition), this site incorporates Facebook-like status updates, telling all of your MyFitnessPlan “friends” how many calories you burn and how much weight you’ve lost. It feeds into the Millenial Generation’s obsession with making their private lives public.

Despite its flaws, I’ve decided to give the site a two-month try. That will get me through the doctor-prescribed diet with an idea of what I need to do to keep myself on track, nutritionally.

What do you think? If you want to join me on my trial, sign up and add me as a friend. We can go through this epic journey together 😉