Weight loss is the most effective when you are tracking your meals. It’s not a joke, according to Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research, people who record their meals lose twice as much weight as those who don’t.
This study was one of the largest “weight loss studies” ever conducted. Moreover, 44% of the participants were African Americans, which shows a more accurate picture of the weight loss process according to ethnicity. For instance, African Americans are at higher risk of being overweight. The results of this study are astonishing – 1,700 participants who kept food diaries lost approximately 13 pounds, which is twice as much to those who were trying to lose weight without calorie counting.
Now, there are no doubts that calorie counting is beneficial for you:
• It creates awareness.
Of course, it is easy to forget about several doughnuts and a bottle of soda in your busy day. But when you are starting to count everything you grab on your way from one meeting to another you became aware what is the reason of those pounds you are struggling to lose.
• Right eating habits.
You may think that your diet is 100% healthy, containing a lot of fruits, nuts and vegetables. But the first-day report will show how far you are from healthy eating. Calorie counting will help you to change your habits following your caloric goals.
• It will show your progress.
The longer you track your meals, the more data you will have at your disposal. You can look at the stats for any time interval you want and find a direct correlation with your weight loss.
However, calorie counting is almost impossible without mobile apps unless you are a super-organized person (read – geek). Calorie counting apps help you to track all your meals correctly showing lots of information about macronutrients and your progress towards the caloric goals.
You can start tracking calories using MyFitnessPal application. It has the largest food database (more than 11 million items), so you will be definitely sure that the food of your choice can be found in the application. Moreover, there is an easy recipe importer to automatically calculate calories while you are cooking.
In case, you want more personalized tips and recipes, you can try Yazio. It has the cutest interface ever. Using it you will receive a personalized meal plan, weight tracker, barcode scanner, etc. However, most of the features are limited in the basic version, so it is better to upgrade it to the pro version.
Nutritionista is the app you should definitely install if you are eating out at restaurants. It contains a really big database of restaurants and will make the calorie counting process 100% automatic. It’s location-based app which offer the nearest restaurants and dishes around you. Counting calories is a pain, Nutritionista makes it easy. You can find a place to eat using the application (it will offer you several nearest restaurants), all other steps will be done without you – your responsibility is to enjoy your meal and view the daily caloric report. Quite easy, right? Join the thousands who have used Nutritionista to learn how to start eating healthy.
Whether count or not to count calories is your choice only. However, in case you are goal-oriented, you definitely will start recording your meals sooner or later, believe me.