calorie tracker

SFGate.com recently had this article about how keeping a food diary helps drop the pounds because when you see what you put in your mouth, you'll notice what's all junk and what's all healthy.

After reading the article and the comments section, I decided to give this try. My online food diary of choice is The Daily Plate at www.thedailyplate.com. You create a username and profile. Then it lets you personalize your profile with your age, weight and height, and your weight loss goal (or weight maintenance), and calculates the total number of calories you can consume each day to meet that weight loss goal or just to maintain your weight.

According to my age/weight/height, I could consume up to 1,400 calories to maintain my current weight. At first, I thought "Oh crap, that's not a lot! I'll starve!!"

I've only been tracking since Tuesday, and surprisingly I haven't even come close to the 1,400 mark. This is mostly due to the fact that I walk for at least an hour everyday to get to BART and back. All that downhill/uphill walking burns up to 400 calories. Yesterday was a bad eating day too (ballpark food + expensive dinner + cab ride), but I still managed to be 100 calories under.

But I'm sure I'll blow my calorie intake today. Although I only had a tuna sandwich for lunch, my sugar/caffeine craving kicked in and I had one of these - a Mint Mocha Chip Frappacino. Good gosh those things are loaded with calories! It was damn good going down my throat though (and the sugar/caffeine craving has been quelled).

Plus there's still five hours left until dinnertime, so who knows what I'll put in my mouth before then. And, it's movie night tonight, so that means nachos and hot dogs at the theater for a snack with dinner afterwards. Yeah, I think I'll go over 1,400 today.