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Easy ways to track food, exercise during holidays
By Bernice Torregrossa
Contributor
Published November 7, 2009
The beautiful fall weather we’re enjoying makes every run better.
Running conditions just can’t get much better than the cool, crisp mornings and evenings of November.
It’s lucky November is such prime running time because the month also brings special occasions and celebrations that can add more calories in one day than running a marathon would burn off.
One of the best ways to avoid adding a few pounds this time of year (other than extra running, which is the most enjoyable way but not always feasible from a time or injury standpoint) is to keep track of food intake using an online food tracker.
If you already keep a mileage log or other run tracker, you’ll find keeping a food tracker isn’t much different.
There are numerous free online food journals, including a few that are especially runner-friendly.
Many runners swear by fitday.com, which tracks activities and calories burned, along with calories consumed.
One of the best features of Fitday is the ability to generate a number of graphs displaying changes over time.
Another favorite is the “Daily Plate” section of livestrong.org, Lance Armstrong’s Web site devoted to health, nutrition and cancer treatment.
Daily Plate helps to determine appropriate goals for each day’s eating, and then counts down how many calories are remaining throughout the day.
The exercise log on the Daily Plate generates graphs similar to Fitday’s, but has a much more extensive list of activities to record.
The log even distinguishes between outdoor running and running on a treadmill.
And for those getting in the holiday spirit, the exercise log includes listings for Christmas shopping, wrapping presents and putting up the Christmas tree.
The iPhone application for the Daily Plate has been one of Apple’s most popular applications. It’s free, and makes it easier to track food and exercise while away from home.
To make tracking even easier, another iPhone application, the Food Scanner, available at dailyburn.com, uses the iPhone’s camera to scan UPC bar codes on packaged foods and enter the data on DailyBurn’s food tracker.
The basic DailyBurn food and exercise tracker package is free and can be managed online without an iPhone, while the Food Scanner application works only on iPhones and can be downloaded for $2.99.
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On The Web
• fitday.com
• livestrong.org
• dailyburn.com
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