My Greatest Tool

When I was nursing for that year, my eating habits were insane. I felt like I was eating all the time! Constantly reaching for something to snack on. And not the healthiest things. I had a lot of excuses, such as my baby. She needed me and I couldn't imagine leaving her long enough to fix an actual meal. So instead of a sandwich, or yogurt, or something healthy I ate junk. Pop-tarts, granola bars, cookies, fast food etc. I felt like I needed that quick energy and something just HAD to get in me. Well after I switched my baby to milk and wasn't nursing, my eating habits didn't change. No surprise there.

Something that really helped me eat better was an app I found in the iTunes store. It's called MyFitnessPal. I am not being paid to promote this app and this is my own opinion. There are many different apps to track eating habits and exercise but this one was the best for me. The food database is huge! And it is really easy to add a food that you can't find. There is an easy to fill use form that you fill out from the label found on the food package. You can also set your own calorie intake goals, water intake, weight loss progress and more!

I found that when I was writing down everything I was eating, and how much I was astounded! I couldn't believe all the extra calories I was packing in, between my actual meals. I made sure I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But all of the extra eating I was doing around my meals was insane! Seeing all of my food logged in one place really helped curb my mindless eating. I have set my daily intake at 1,200 calories. Some days I eat more, some days I eat less. But it has been good for me to have a goal in mind when making my food choices during the day. I don't beat myself up if I go over my goal, and I don't try to stuff more in if I'm not hungry.

There is also an exercise section. You can look up lots of different exercises, put in the time you did them for and it shows you how many calories you burned. It will then subtract what you have burned from your daily intake. This is an awesome way to keep track of what you have accomplished through the day!

I love being able to keep track of my weight as well, I can record when I lose and it keeps track letting me know how much I have lost up to date. You can also measure inches.

One of my other favorite parts of this app is the My Recipes function. You can take your own recipe and add in the ingredients. Then you add how many people your recipe serves and it will tell you the calorie count in each portion! So now I know how many calories are in my cheesecake, pizza dough, and lasagna. That has been a real life saver!

Seriously. Explore this app and really make it work for you. There are lots of others like it. This one was free, but you should look around and find one that you like. This has been one of the best things I have ever done!