Fatsecret - a diet counter

[liv]

J (atkinsgal) mentioned fatsecret today and I had to check it out. It was pretty cool actually.
All Things Food and Diet - FatSecret

It has a pretty good entry system for foods and exercise and you can get it to count net carbs for you - which is useful. Some people may prefer it to FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal that we normally recommend.
I did not quite like their veggie entries. Could not find enough raw options for my liking.
On the other hand it had more brand stuff so I could find a ready made entry for my favorite dark chocolate.

I will likely stick to fitday. I am just so used to it but perhaps if I was starting over this one would not be bad at all

What I kind of liked about it was that it works with the foodfinder tool that you can use with firefox. If you use firefox as a browser one of its tools is the Food and Calorie Finder

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10951

Which can be a really quick way to look up netcarbs in a jiffy.

Anyways. If anyone tries it let me know what you think.

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

I presume that one can make custom entries in Fatsecret?

If so, then one can look up foods in their raw state on the USDA site ... and ... good to go.

Also, the PC version of Fitday does allow for customizable columns, so one can get "carbs minus fiber" that way.

[JulieB]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

So what is the deal with the PC version of Fitday anyway? I find that I can't understand the difference looking on their website

So you can customize columns to give you net carbs for each entry - that is a definite plus...what else? Can I access my data from the internet like I do with the web version, or is my data stored on my PC? If my data is on the internet...can I access it from my work PC using the website, or do I have to load the software?

What are the other differences?

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

>> So you can customize columns to give you net carbs for each entry>>

Yes.

>>Can I access my data from the internet like I do with the web version, or is my data stored on my PC? >>

No ... UNLESS you pay for the PREMIUM service ... which syncs between the two.

You probably wouldn't want to have the program on a work PC ... only at home.

It has some other bells and whistles ... the customizable columns were worth it when I was using it on a previous computer where I was running Virtual PC ... but I don't have access to Windows now.

Also ... the premium service is $5.49 per month.

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/Member...ate=1256947200.

[JulieB]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

You probably wouldn't want to have the program on a work PC ... only at home.

That is why I asked.

With the web version, I can check my stuff from my work computer or my iphone with just a web browser.

[mizski]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

I signed up on Fatsecret back when J. first mentioned it a while back. Right now I'm staying close to ADBB for my support and info and to stay on the straight and narrow but Fatsecret has a lot of interesting features.

I really like their recipes and like the fact that it has reviews by followers of that diet (and the phase of the diet). Haven't done too much posting over there though.

I've been using the PC version of FitDay for a couple years now and have it all customized the way I like it so I did not check out their food tracker much. It looks like it would be very useful for those who use a lot of prepared or packaged brand name foods though.

Hey Liv, thanks for the pointer to the FireFox addon!

[Elizellen]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

Another difference with the pc version of fitday is that you can add recipes easily.
You just click on 'create custom food', enter a name and the servings number for the whole recipe then click on the 'ingredients' tab & use the search function to find your ingredients and drag them into the ingredients box where you can alter the default quantities to be exactly what you are adding.
Then save, and when you eat the dish just type in however many servings you ate and the numbers are worked out for you.

[mizski]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

Another difference with the pc version of fitday is that you can add recipes easily.

I like that recipe feature a lot. It also lets me know the nutritional breakdown of my recipes and counts them towards my daily intake. Also, I can easily tell if a recipe has too much sodium or whatever and easily make tweaks to better the recipe.

[brandywine1241]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

The PC version allows you to have unlimited custom foods. When I was using the online version, after a certain point, the oldest custom foods dropped off and you had to reenter them if you wanted to use them again.

You can also create some neat custom reports. For example, you can define a new entry in the "Reason" column called "veggies" and produce a report showing how many of your carbs came from veggies.

[mizski]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

You can also create some neat custom reports. For example, you can define a new entry in the "Reason" column called "veggies" and produce a report showing how many of your carbs came from veggies.

Wow!!! That is brilliant!! I never used the Reason column and didn't even explore the possibilities of customizing it. This will come in very handy for the upcoming veggie challenge.

Thanks for the tip!

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

>>after a certain point, the oldest custom foods dropped off and you had to reenter them if you wanted to use them again.>>

They're gone from the "View my custom foods" list?

Odd.

[Elizellen]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

>>after a certain point, the oldest custom foods dropped off and you had to reenter them if you wanted to use them again.>>

They're gone from the "View my custom foods" list?

The irritating thing is that as they are listed in alphabetical order things like yogurt at the end of the list vanish if you add a new custom food!

[chinadoll]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

Wow, I am finding out a lot. I got because our Internet service is so spotty I sometimes have a couple of days when I cant log into fitday.com so it saved me having to put in 3-4 days at a time.

[Georgiana]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

When I was using the online version, after a certain point, the oldest custom foods dropped off and you had to reenter them if you wanted to use them again.

The irritating thing is that as they are listed in alphabetical order things like yogurt at the end of the list vanish if you add a new custom food!

I think that only happened with older online versions of FitDay. I have about 150 custom foods in mine and they are all there.

[Elizellen]

Re: Fatsecret - a diet counter

I think that only happened with older online versions of FitDay. I have about 150 custom foods in mine and they are all there.

That is good to hear, G
I am glad they have taken account of the things that were irritating in the older version and changed things to make the software more useful!