A friend in diet

It’s been over a month of jazzercise classes and so far, so good. The classes are fun and well-paced for one such as me.

However the one thing I’ve yet to do is to track what I’m eating. I’ve given up carbs but for one spoon of rice or one piece of bread per day, just to stem my craving for those blasted things. Just so you know, Lokes went down eight sizes from six months of no carbs and no exercise. Amazing, and unfair!

Anyway, check this out: My Fitness Pal. It’s got a free calorie counter so you can track your meals and work out a diet plan – any diet plan, be it Atkins or South Beach or what have you. Best of all, it’s free.

The registration process includes making a diet profile that lets you enter the ideal weight you want to achieve, your current level of activity (or inactivity) and how much you want to lose. My ideal weight (you can get use a calculator to do this) would be 160lbs, which means I have 50lbs more to go, and I work out five times a week and want to lose two pounds a week. And right off the bat, they tell me that:

My Target intake should be: 1,200 calories/day
My nutritional goals should be: Carbs / Day: 165 g | Fat / Day: 40 g | Protein / Day: 45 g
My fitness goals: Calories burned per week – 2,310/week, @ five workouts of 60 minutes each a week

Within My Fitness Pal is a Food Diary, an Exercise Log, a weigh-in and a forum so like-minded individuals can prompt and motivate you on. You can also generate reports on your progress at the click of a few buttons.

So if you’re serious about losing weight and keeping fit, try My Fitness Pal out. You need all the friends you can get to make the journey easier – and a lot more fun!

This post is brought to you by My Fitness Pal.