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My Fitness Pal

I know some of you are like me and not necessarily overweight, but do need to start making healthy decisions about what you eat. For about two years my diet consisted of mostly donuts, chips, and jelly beans. Occasionally there was a Snickers bar or some M&Ms thrown in. Now that I’m in college, I have a very limited budget and that’s making my eating habits suffer. One way to keep up with that is to keep track of everything you eat and its nutritional value. And what with this Web 2.0 frenzy of friendly websites to help you with everything from poker to organization, why not take advantage?

In my search of a great nutritional website, I came across My Fitness Pal. The website’s tagline is “Free Calorie Counter, Diet & Exercise Journal.” There’s an easy diet profile that will help you come up with a plan to either maintain or lose weight at your own pace. I find that very helpful. Since I’m not overweight, I just want to maintain my weight and keep up with a journal to track my eating and exercise and the calorie counter does all of it for you.

If you have home cooked meals (lucky you!) or even Lean Cuisines, there’s a simple way to find the nutritional value with their calorie chart. If you look up spaghetti, it gives you possibilities for how exactly it’s made, such as spaghetti and meat (107 calories per 100 grams). It’s also 100% free, which is great since I’m such a poor college student.