Today’s Guest Post is written by Megan, a former roommate of mine with a BS degree in exercise science with an emphasis in fitness and wellness management. She is certified through the American College of Sports Medicine as a personal trainer, is certified through Silver Slippers and AFFA, and has worked as a personal trainer/nutrition counselor for over two years. Basically all this means that she is my go-to person whenever I have questions about fitness/nutrition. If you want more tips and tricks for everything from how to avoid sweets or how you should arrange your workout to decrease body fat, visit her blog, Munch and Crunch.

When Jenna asked me to do a guest post about Fitday.com, the online version of Fitday, I was more than glad to do it. It is one of my favorite websites, and has been such an essential tool in helping me reach my goals. I have used both the online version and the PC version, and I think they are both great. I have internet access at work, but I don’t always have my own computer with me. Being able to access my info online whenever I need to makes it a lot easier for me to stay on top of my recording. If I were to have to wait until I got home to enter in all of my info I probably wouldn’t be as consistent, and consistency has been the key to my success.

I have been using the Fitday.com off and on for about 3 years. I love knowing exactly what I’m eating everyday. I know which percentages come from fat, protein, and carbohydrates, and I can see if I’m getting all of my proper nutrients in. When it comes down to it weight loss is a science. You have to create a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. Knowing exactly how many calories you are burning and how many calories you are consuming is crucial to creating this deficit.

There are a lot of great features with the online version. First of all, it’s free. You can’t beat free. I have also been pleasantly surprised with the food database that is provided. There are a lot of name brand foods already entered in. By going to the food entry page and searching for the food you are looking for you can look through the options that are already listed.

If you can’t find the food you are looking for in the database, (or one that is similar enough to use), you can enter in your own custom foods. This is another favorite feature of mine.

There are a few things that I love about this feature. All foods that you buy have nutrition labels and it only takes a few seconds to enter them in. You only have to enter them once and then it’s saved in your “custom foods.” Also, I’m a HUGE fan of looking up nutrition facts from the restaurants I eat at. I love to look it up and enter it in to my custom foods. I would highly recommend looking up the nutrition facts to your favorite restaurants. I know a lot of people go out to dinner with the mindset of “We’re out on the town, I don’t want to think about it…” BUT, ignorance doesn’t change the calorie count. Knowledge is power. There are great choices of sensible foods wherever you go!

I am a creature of habit. I think a lot of us are. I tend to eat a lot of the same foods all the time. The “recent foods” tab is awesome for this reason.It keeps the foods that you’ve eaten recently in a drop down tab. This makes for easier access to those frequent foods, so you don’t have to search for them every time. If you enter in the foods from the “recent foods” drop down menu it also saves the amount that you entered in previously.Another trick I’ve learned from the “recent foods” feature is if you go down to the bottom of the drop down box there is an option to
select “more.”

When you choose this it pulls up your past days entries in list form and you can just check the boxes and select a whole list of your common foods at once. It makes entering your foods so much easier.

One thing that is good to remember is although it may seem a pain to enter in your foods that aren’t in the database, you will only have to do it once. After a period of using for a while most of your common foods will be in there and you won’t be entering custom foods in as often. This makes your recording a lot easier.

There are other great features included in the online version such as the ability to calculate your daily activity level, your weight changes, your goals, journal your daily thoughts and moods, and pull up several reports of what your stats are showing. I think the online version is super user friendly, but I’d love to answer any questions for those of you who are new to the program. Remember, consistency is key.

Thank you Megan, this was definitely a post I could not have written myself. I think Megan might be interested in coming back and guest posting a few more times. She is so smart and uses big words like deficit, I think we could all learn a lot from her. Would you like to hear from her again?