Food Selection

[aranki]

I've been using Fitday for couple of weeks now and initially I loved it, but the more I use it the more I find that its creators have not really thought through the foods they have listed. For example, I could not find breakfast sausage or buffalo wings listed.

[RunbikeSki]

Hi aranki,
Yeah, some of the food choices the creators have chosen to include are a little odd... cuban beans???

Anyway, the most accurate way to use the log is to create your own foods using the nutrient labels on the package. For example, breakfast sausage could be anything from lite versions of standard sausages, chicken sausage or regular old Jimmy Dean full-fat. If you create a food that is exactly what you are eating the calorie and nutrient counts will perfectly reflect what you are putting in your body.

Also there are 2 ways to get at the food library. The "search" feature is OK for some things, but try finding ground beef - you will usually get buffalo. Likewise most of the chicken foods are hard to locate this way. But if you use the browse feature you are more likely to find exactly what is on you plate.

Keep up the logging even if you are getting a little frustrated - most of us agree that it is the single most effective tool to really managing calories.

[wildbeanerz]

Something like buffalo wings is tough to look up. It is more like chicken, wing and then you probably have to look up the sauce separately. Unless you use something like the one that says chicken, wing pepper sauce.

Breakfast sausage though shouldn't be that hard. Here is a section of the answers I get when I search: sausage link
Smoked link sausage, pork
Sausage, Italian, sweet, links
OSCAR MAYER, Smokie Links Sausage
Smoked link sausage, pork and beef
Sausage, turkey, breakfast links, mild
OSCAR MAYER, Pork Sausage Links (cooked)
Beef sausage, brown and serve, links, cooked
Pork sausage rice links, brown and serve, cooked
Pork sausage, fresh, bulk, patty or link, cooked
Beef sausage, fresh, bulk, patty or link, cooked
Smoked link sausage, pork and beef, nonfat dry milk added
Sausage rice links and whole wheat pancakes (frozen meal)
Turkey and pork sausage, fresh, bulk, patty or link, cooked
USDA Commodity, pork sausage, bulk/links/patties, frozen, raw
USDA Commodity, pork, sausage, bulk/links/patties, frozen, cooked
Smoked link sausage, pork and beef, flour and nonfat dry milk added

I posted at the same time as Pam and just wanted to second the notion of custom foods based on the nutrition label being the most accurate way to log your foods.

[aranki]

Thank you ladies for your encouragement. I Definitely will keep up with it. I do like the features available, but what gets me is that I spend way too many hours looking for the exact food. Now I did find Chicken wings but its not like the buffalo wings because the buffalo wings are just one piece of the wing. also when you search for chicken you will get the parts scattered so if you have a quarter of a chicken you will need to search for two pieces.

Anyway I need to loose about 70 lb hopefully this tool will help me do that.

[wildbeanerz]

Welcome to the site! I started in February with about 150lbs to lose and have lost @ 54 of that now. So it does work. One other thing I failed to mention ... if you want your custom foods to appear in alphabetical order make sure to capitalize the first letter. If you use all lower case (like I did) they will be listed chronologically making them harder to look through and use.

[barlana]

I'm finding it well worth the time to put in customized foods these 1st 2wks of using FD.
now as i reuse them its alot easier and i'm confident that i'm able to log all that i eat into diary.
I have to say that it took me forever that 1st week- seemed that there wasn't much that i could use on the automated list.
That's what i get for cooking from scratch!
Although I only lost 2lbs since 10/23 (& 2lbs previous wk on my own)
I'm noticing my jeans are already more comfortable so I'm moving forward with this and i thank all for the comments and advice that i read in the forums.

Keep adding to your custom lists and you won't get bored with what you eat