Healthy Eating Made Simple!

Program Intern, Kim Jobke, gives us insight on one of her favorite nutrition apps. Check out the post below!



Meal planning is often the first step in building a healthier diet. But, let’s face it, planning meals takes time, something we all could use more of! Add grocery shopping into the mix and eating healthy can take up a significant amount of your time. The good news is there are many websites available to help you eat healthy, and save time doing it. My favorite is a website called ZipList, where you cannot only plan your meals, but also create smart grocery lists and find deals at local grocery stores.

To get started, visit ziplist.com and create a free account and/or download the free app for your Smartphone. The account on the computer will automatically sync with the app on your phone. Once you have an account you can:

Find Recipes – Find thousands of recipes through ZipList’s recipe database, including those from popular food websites, add your own recipes, or “clip” and save recipes you find on the internet – try the recipes on our blog!

Create a Recipe Box – Save recipes in your recipe box for future use and sort by source, ingredient or cook time for faster meal planning.

Sync Meal Plans to Calendar – Sync the meal plans you create to your personal calendar on Google Calendar, iCalendar, or Outlook.

Generate Grocery Lists – Generate a grocery shopping list from your meal plan to make shopping less time consuming and cut down on unnecessary spending. You can even share your lists with others! Scan the barcode on items at the grocery store using your Smartphone to automatically add them to your list.

Find Deals and Get Coupons – ZipList will find local grocery store deals based on the items you buy and also send you coupons. Then, you can assign items to lists for purchase at specific stores based on the deals.

Try ZipList out today and comment to tell me what you think!

Get Fooducated

A guest recently made me aware of a new app that sounds pretty interesting. It’s called Fooducate.

Pick a product off the shelf in the store, scan the bar code and Fooducate gives you a nutritional breakdown of the products, assigns it a letter grade ( A would an excellent choice, D not so good) and when available, suggests more nutritious options with in that food’s category. According to the website, Fooducate was created by dieticians and concerned parents. It has a data base of over 200,000 products and more are being added daily. It uses your mobile phone’s camera to scan the UPC barcode and works on the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android OS version 2.2 and up.

Since I am still in the dark ages of cell phones, I have not used the app myself. I have talked to a couple of people who have used it, however, and they found it helpful. If you have it or get it, I would be interested in in hearing what you think about it.

“The Photo Diet”: Could Photographing Meals Be More Effective Than A Written Journal?

 

BONUS – Two iPhone Apps That Make It Easy!

Previous studies  have shown that keeping a written food diary can double your weight loss.  But, newer studies  are revealing that a photographic journal of your food consumption can be more effective and it’s becoming increasingly popular.

Researchers have found that written food diaries were often filled in hours after the meal and were not as powerful in creating an impression of how much food had been consumed.  Like traditional journaling, photographic journaling provides accountability to what you put into your mouth, however, many people respond more effectively to visual cues; it isn't surprising that seeing what you've eaten can be more impacting.  The pictures appear to have concentrated the dieter's mind at just the right time, before they were about to eat.  Therefore, the photographs also acted as a powerful reminder of any snacking binges.

Here are two iPhone Apps that make “The Photo Diet” easy.  BEWARE: neither App tracks calories; there are hundreds of other apps that have that capability.

 1.   dietSNAPS

dietSNAPS is simple. You just take a picture of everything that you eat.  dietSNAPS lets you write a note to go along with your picture or write an actual diet journal entry. Beyond the notes and pictures, dietSNAPS allows you to track all of your meals, your snacks, your drinks, your water and even your exercise.  dietSNAPS then gives you the ability to e-mail your day to a nutritionist, personal trainer or other accountability partner.

 2.   Foodish 

Rather than putting the focus on calories or math of any sort, Foodish instead focuses on the healthfulness of your diet. In Foodish, which has a striking interface, you'll hit the plus sign to add a meal, snack or drink. You'll enter in a title — usually just the food name or items on the plate — and mark the item with one of four faces, depending on how healthy you think the meal is. There's no one checking up on you, and there's no right answer — which face you choose is based on your interpretation of what you're eating. Then you'll add a photo, either taken in app or from the library, of your food or drink. That's it. If you want, you can share your meal over Facebook and Twitter.

5 Apps for Health and Fitness

Use your iPhone and Android phone for more than just chatting...

1.       RunKeeper – Rated as the best “App for Running” by O’Reilly Media.  This nifty GPS-powered running log tracks your location, providing pace, distance, and altitude info, even mapping your running route. RunKeeper syncs to the app's website, where you can analyze, chart, and share stats to your healthy heart's content. Because it relies on GPS, the app works only outside (sorry treadmill users), and iPhone limitations keep it from tracking your run in the background (you're on pause if the phone rings).

2.       CardioTrainer for Android – I personally have an Android powered phone so this is the App that I enjoying using on my runs.  CardioTrainer is a phenomenal tool for running. It tracks steps taken, miles traveled, pace, and calories burned. It also tracks your history through graphs or high scores, supports treadmills, provides voice notifications for progress, and plays music.

3.       Tap and Track  – If you’re looking for a comprehensive weight loss App - this is the one for you!  The Tap & Track app will allow you to keep track of your calories by calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and finding the daily calorie needs of your body based on your gender, age, weight and height. The app also considers the type of occupation you are in and applies the very well-known Harris Benedict Equation while doing the calculations. The application features can be divided into 4 parts; Food, Exercise, Graphs and Report. You will find the app very easy and pleasant to use. You can find the food list, the exercises, the graphs and of course the final report by simply tapping the iPhone screen with your fingers.

4.       Nike+ GPS App - The Nike+ GPS App for iPhone will pull in data from the device’s accelerometer and GPS to give runners an effective, accurate and useful tool for getting in shape and staying motivated.  My favorite part of this App is the ability to receive “cheers” from your Facebook friends.  When you start a run it will post to your Facebook profile automatically and if someone comments on your post it will read the text to you while working out.  Very Cool!

5.       Lose It – This has been my most recommended App for weight loss.  It was the first user-friendly calorie-counting app for the iPhone, and it is free. The Lose It app from FitNow utilizes the Mifflin equation to determine what your daily calorie intake should be. You input your age, height, gender and current weight then choose your goal weight; Lose It tells you how many calories you can eat each day to meet this weight loss goal. Then your work begins.

 

What are your favorite Health and Fitness Apps on the iPhone or Android?