Thanks! It does seem so confusing. I started a journal today on the journal page so hopefully things are good there.

Thanks, 1pepper

Hi there.....

I think that the accuracy of fitday improves when you enter your foods in the most basic way possible. By this I mean, for example, if you eat a Caesar salad, instead of using fitday's version of Caesar salad, you break it down and enter it as romaine lettuce and caesar salad dressing. Generally, when you use combination foods, there is no way of being sure that their version is identical to your version.

HTH
Marlaine

On fitday- when the measurement is 1 cup- do you know if it is 1 cup dry measure or 1 cup wet measure? obviously, a liquid is a liquid and a solid is a solid- but something like chicken salad? Jello? I am a bit confused because I don't know how much to enter. When given the option I usually enter by the oz. but that feature is not always available.

thanks

And so under the catergry in sausages,they have frankfurter. What is frankfurter referring to?Anyway does anybody knows how many carbs does a sausage has?those that are packed ones?

Thanks!!

I agree with you that the best way to enter foods is by weight. I have discovered that by looking around at more than one listing for a food, I will often find a listing by weight.

When you measure by volume, as in the chicken salad, you may have to use a "best guess" listing and settle for being close if not exactly on the money.

Hope this helps with your question.

Marlaine

The best place to find the exact details about the sausage you are eating is on the package. Check the packaging carefully as you will find that many processed meats contain grains and sugar. Theoretically, meats have no carbs. When they do have carbs, it's usually a processed meat and not your best value when doing a LC plan.

Marlaine

Does anyone know how they come up with "Basal" and "Lifestyle" cals burned? Seems like it's very high to me. Do you guys count all three, meaning, basal, lifestyle and activities or just activities when computing cals burned daily. For instance, I computed yesterday's totals. No exercise, just input what I do at my job. Here are the totals:
source cals % total
Total: 2539
Basal: 1587 63%
Lifestyle: 688 27%
Activities: 265 10%

Do we really expend that much energy daily just by breathing, etc? I had no idea....

I wanted to ask what you Splenda users use as an entry for your sugar substitute. Today was my first day on fitday; and it seemed to go all right....(could be worse). With foods that you guys have every single day, such as coffee with one splenda and a tbl of heavy cream, is there a way to make that into one custom entry? That would sure save some time.

Thanks for your help

I am so very glad I found this thread. I was using webmd's food/fitness journal but they are updating it and I am not sure when it will be back up. I just joined fitday and it looks great.

Tricia, fitday uses formuals that are 'best guestimates' - if your metabolism is lower it will be off same as if it's higher. I know when I first joined there was no way I was burning what they suggested I was so I adjusted accordingly. I know now that they're off as well - this time on the lower end. I burn a lot more than they suggest thanks to a higher than average lean body mass.

Generally speaking though, 10x body weight is a good estimate of what it takes to keep your body alive (aka 'basal') - this estimate gets more accurate the closer you get to your ideal weight. Where I tend to run into problems is with activities; they have an entry for 'ski machine, general' but that doesn't work if you're doing HIIT (high intensity interval training).

HTH
Nat

What I've done with custom entries is opened a second account with fitday where I can enter all the information under one day for that particular 'food'. I'll print off the information (cals, protein, fat, carbs, etc) and enter it as a 'custom food' under my main account. You can also go to the 'reports' page and print off the report "Am I meeting all my nutritional goals" for that day and get the information on sodium, potassium etc for your 'custom food'.

HTH
Nat

I started to use fitday about one week now, and I really enjoy it. It takes some playing with it sometimes to find the right foods consumed but I enjoy it quite a bit...
I'm so glad I came to this thread to find it though....

Here is a great site to help with measurement conversions.
especially tbl. to oz. to ml.



http://www.cookinglow-fat.com/conversionchart.htm

Thanks a bunch JmJt,
That will help a lot....

Okay, the fitday formula for figuring out food is this

Cals = fat X 9 + (carb - fiber) X 4 + protein X 4 + alcohol X 7

I can understand it, except fot the (carb - fiber) part when I enter my own custom food.

For example, I made a custom food for PSYLLIUM WHOLE HUSKS (by the way, my hint is to do all custom food in all caps). This is the label:

Cals - 15
Fat - 0
Tot Carb - 4
Dietary Fiber 4
Protein 0

That's enough to plug in. But by their formula it equals 0 cals. So to appease the computer I just typed in 0 cals (it doesn't matter to me, it's the fiber I want to see).

Any comments? I've had this happen with other high fiber foods, so I'm not sure if it's me or the labels. Obviously it's not going to screw up my diet, but I'm definitely trying to increase my fiber count.