Is There A Web Site That I Can Input My Own Food Choices Into A Diet Plan?
Ok..I am very selective in what I will eat. I am not picky..but when it comes to diets/healthy eating there are main staples i find in every plan that I just don’t eat.
For example, I do not eat eggs, fish, cheese, or yogurt. I love fruit, veggies, skim milk, chicken breast, and whole wheat/grain foods.
It’s just every diet I find includes most of the foods I do not eat into their everyday plans. I am looking for a website that allows me to enter all the foods I will eat and then it uses those foods and makes a daily breakdown of the meals.
I know it’s all about moderation, exercise, and water. I am just looking for a good plan that I can follow each day to help out until I get into a routine and it becomes natural.
Thanks for the help!
You can try http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/. They let you enter what you’ve eaten in the day and compare the numbers to what you should be eating. There are also message boards where you can bounce ideas off of other users. My friend uses that site and she loves it.
Just remember that to lose one pound of fat, you must create a 3,500 calorie deficit in your diet. This means that you have to burn 3,500 calories more than you eat.
Say, for example you want to lose 15 lbs. that means you will have to burn 52,500 calories.
3,500(15)=52,500
If you combine a workout that burns 500 calories more than the one you are doing now, and a diet that cuts out 500 calories that would be1,000 calories a day more that you are expending than you are currently, then:
52,500(calories you need to burn)/1,000(more calories per day)=52.5 days
which means that in about 53 days (less than two months) you could lose the 15 lbs. in actual weight (not including water weight) and all the while build muscle and increase your metabolism. All it takes is commitment!! A useful website is calorie king (I am including the link below). You can enter whatever food you buy and record the calories in a log. on the previous mentioned website mycaloriecounter.com. But this website has information on the caloric content/nutritional value of many foods found in grocery stores, as well as national restaraunt chains. It is important that you find out how many calories, on average you are taking in per day now, so you can reduce the intake and make better food choices. Here are some other helpful tips:
1. Eat AFTER you exercise, not before! If you eat before your body will use the nutrients you just ate that are circulating through your blood stream because they are more readily available. You want your body to use stored fat first, so you work out, then eat. You metabolism will be ready when you eat.
2. Drink plenty of water. I know its cliche, but it teaches your body not to store excess water (this creates water-retention and water-weight). Plus its good for your organs and muscles!
3.Don’t waste your money on diet plans others have created. Do your own!! Figure out how many calories you consume on average now, and reduce it by 500 calories. I have included the link for a website that will help you determine how many calories you are taking in. You can make any combination of foods (whether they are fast food, ice cream, whatever) as long as they add up to your daily amount. I would not advise eating these, as you will have to skimp on another meal.
4. Try eating many small meals (200-300 calories at a time) throughout the day to keep your metabolism going strong.http://www.calorieking.com/tools/http://www.calorieking.com/foods/
I think following a meal plan to get into the healthy eating routine is a great way to start. That is how I did it. I used http://www.kraftfoods.com because it was free.
I also paid for http://www.eDiets.com later on. They had a much wider selection. There was about 10 different diet plans to choose from and they had some stuff that was specific to that diet, and some meals were shared across many diets.
If you want to go the meal plan route, unfortunately you won’t be able to put whatever you want in there. However, with eDiets, you can select certain foods you won’t eat, and it will not put recipes that contain those foods. Also with eDiets, you can tell it you want a “convenience” plan where you will barely do any cooking.
With both eDiets and KraftFoods, if there is a meal on your menu for the day/week that you don’t like, you can exchange it for one of the other meals. When I used the Kraft website, I had only about 5 meals that I liked, and I just kept switching out for those. It wasn’t a permanent solution because I got tired of those 5 meals, but it was long enough to get my body used to eating healthy.
Another option you might want to consider is http://www.fitday.com. It’s not a meal plan, but you can put any food you want into the system and then choose that food at any time, and it will calculate your calories for the entire day based on what you entered and selected. It will also calculate you percentage of carbs vs. fat vs. protein, so if you plan in advance you can easily strive for a balance of 40%, 30%, 30% respectively. This site is more time consuming though because you have to hand-enter any food items they don’t have in their database, and you have to plan your own meals. It just calculates the totals, it doesn’t do any of the planning or shopping list generation for you. FitDay is a free site, but they have an advanced membership you pay for if you decide you want it.
I think this website might help.http://www.nutritiondata.com/