Diwali has come
and gone. Now is the time to start fretting about all those calories
that we put on over the last month or so, gorging on sweets. Dieticians
may ask you to cut back on food or take to healthy eating habits or even
give you recommendations based on your blood group.
We suggest the tech way out. Let us look at some apps that help you burn calories or guide you to eat better.
Lose It! Sign
up for the service via their website, fill in your date of birth, your
current weight (in pounds; you can convert from kg to pound by typing in
Google 80 kg to lbs), your gender - and choose what you want to do:
maintain the same we ight, loose half a pound per week to 2 pounds a
week.
Lose It! will tell you how long it will take. They have a free plan as well as a paid professional plan ($39.99 or about Rs. 2,480
per year). Once your sign-up is complete, the site sends you an email
to download the app for your smart device [iPhone, Android). (Sadly
their app is not available for download in India, but you can access the
website through your mobile web browser)
After you have a
meal, note it in the app, along with the portion size. You can also add
your exercise routine and duration, and take challenges to make it like
a game. A community of other users helps you stay encouraged. Over
time, it makes you aware - and smarter - about your eating patterns and
habits.
Lose It! also connects to smart devices such as Fitbit and Nike Fuel band, and you can cross-connect your accounts.
[www.loseit.com]
My Fitness Pal Similar
to Lose It! in the sense that you need to sign up by giving some
personal information, My Ftness Pal uses metric units. This site also
asks about your lifestyle - sedentary or very active, etc - and if you
plan to exercise alongside dieting. My Fitness Pal also lets you gain
weight if you so desire, and lets you join as a group with friends so
that you can form a support community, even while keep your weight
private. It tells you quantities of carbohydrates, fats and proteins
that you need to consume daily to achieve your target, and also you how
many calories you need to burn .
The app is available for most platforms, including BlackBerry and Windows.
We found that My
Fitness Pal has a slightly better index of Indian foods, and you can
add stuff to the database, including recipes, which it analyses and
gives improvement suggestions.
Pictrition This
makes a game out of eating habits. All you do is snap pictures of what
you ate, write down a small snippet about it, add the location
(optional), and 'save' your meal. The more pictures you share the more
points you get, you can also rate pictures of food other people are
eating, your entries come as a nice scroll at the bottom half as
thumbnails with points overlaid on them, you can add your weight and
track it. Other users on the network can grade your food photo as
'bad', 'okay' or 'good', and so can you. Identities are not revealed,
nor is sign-up required. The app has just been launched, and is in the
process of adding more features, including a planned registered
dietician and personalised reports that help you reach goals.
As of now, it is
only a sort of picture-book of your eating habits, but experts* say
that maintaining a food diary is half the battle against the bulge.
Incidentally, if your pictures get a lot of 'bad' grades, you had better
review your eating habits.
The American
Journal of Preventive Medicine says that among people on a diet, those
who maintain food diaries lose up to twice the weight as people who do
not. Doctors and dieticians also say that keeping a food diary
encourages one to eat fewer calories, and better food
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