Okay, so in my decade+ of calorie counting (off and on) and five years of using MFP, how in the world have I never utilized the bar code scanner?!
My Mom & sisters and I are writing daily emails to each other to keep ourselves accountable on this fitness journey, and in one of them my mom & sister mentioned how handy it was to use the bar code scanner feature on the phone app. Um, are you kidding me? I consider myself a fairly tech savvy person, and I had no idea how amazing this thing was because I had never bothered utilizing it. I don’t eat everything packaged by any means, but think about it – even your egg carton has a bar code on it. You can scan SO MUCH of the stuff you eat. It makes calorie tracking a snap!
So that was my big revelation this past week. If you use MyFitnessPal for calorie tracking, utilize the bar code scanner feature on your phone’s app. It’s a snap!
Here’s a quick check in on my goals for the month:
- Complete Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred program. – I’m 6/7 on this, and on the 7th day we took a walk as a family, so I’m fine with that. I also have my step count up to an average of 6,000 steps a day (I was averaging between 3-5k), so I’m definitely moving my body more!
- Track calories in MFP & stay within my limit. – Doing well with this! I think one day I was over by 40 and every other day I was spot on or down by 100-200, so I’m fine with that. Like I said, it’s all about toning this month, not hard core weight loss.
- Drink more water – at least 100 oz per day. – Doing okay with this. I’m probably getting at least 64oz/day, but I’m focusing on drinking more, which is better than I was doing before!
A goal I’m adding in this week has to do with food. I am horrible about eating leftovers that are in the fridge – even if they’re high calorie junk that I don’t really want – simply because I’m cheap and don’t want food to go to waste. I’d hate to estimate how many thousands of extra calories I’ve eaten in my life simply because I didn’t want to waste food. NO MORE. I’m going to continue to try to cook smaller portions so we don’t have leftovers, but if we do have leftovers, Charlie can eat them (which he rarely does) or we can throw them out if it’s not in my food plan, and that’s okay.
Hello – I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now but haven’t commented before. Just wanted to say thanks for the fitness/nutrition updates. I’ve recently embarked on a (renewed) set of goals for myself, including fitness/food habits. It’s nice to read about other people’s triumphs and struggles, as it both inspires me and offers new ideas/suggestions. I’ve resisted calorie-counting and any sort of food intake tracking for a long time (mostly b/c it sounds like a lot of work!) but I may look into the MFP phone app you mentioned. Who knows – maybe it will be the revelation I need to finally break out of my weight loss rut! 🙂
Thanks! I find it helpful too to read what other people are trying and doing on their fitness journeys!
Ha! That one week I did MFP I used the barcode scanner…which only works on about 20% of our products because, Canada. MRRRRRP. Anyway, I am getting the Shred video and am going to DO IT because I am squishy all over and OVER IT. Should probably get serious about MFP too, eh?
Ya, “you can’t outwork a crappy diet” and all that…
I think the composition of my diet itself is good, but I’d like to link it to FitBit (I forgot about that!) to get a more accurate input/output reading as currently more is going IN than OUT. Ah, winter! Everyone talking about Shred has inspired me to order it. 🙂
Ya, it doesn’t have to be bad quality food causing the issue — but the quantity. I don’t calorie count all the time, but I find when I’m trying to get back into the groove, it helps me to do so for a few weeks (esp with it linked to FitBit!) to realize what exactly a portion size is an how many cals are in everything I’m eating.
YO! Since booting up MFP about 3 days ago, I am proud to inform you that since I last tried it 8 months ago, every barcode I have scanned works! Even on Candian brand foods…even store brands! YAY!!!!
i loveee the shred! I wore my dvd out! If you ever need a break from it-or get sick of it-Jillian’s ripped in 30 has the same format-except you do 3 strength moves instead of 2. 🙂 Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Oh, yeah. I bar scanned a lot of things last year. A chocolate turkey from sees candy is 770 calories. And yes. I ate one. In one sitting. 🙂 The funniest thing is when someone offers you something to eat and you grab the box and bar code scan it. hahaha!
I gained a pound since I had to put my scale away for our open house. I was too lazy to dig it out from under the sink, and weighing myself every morning let me know I was where I needed to be. If I was a little above, I’d scale back on goodies. Mark said that was ridiculous that I was annoyed with one pound, but I asked him if he’s seen a pound of butter. Also, one pound is just the beginning. It’s such a sliding scale once you break habits. So now I have to go back to being a little more health conscious. Also, I’ve been running to reduce stress, but not stretching properly, so just a ball of knots and stress. Ugh. Time to take better care of me.
Ordered my next bottle of inositol today! Woot!
I thought I was horrible about leftovers in the fridge bc I DON’T eat ours. Now, whenever I feel guilty for tossing yet another perfectly good meal, I’ll think of this and trick myself into thinking I’m doing something good 🙂
Hahahaha. I love it. 🙂
That barcode scany thing sounds really handy!! Obviously, wouldn’t work here.. and I don’t have a smartphone BUT still sounds neat! 😉 Oh my, I really need to get back to eating healthier and exercising. I don’t know why but the last few (many!) weeks I have been acting like I could do whatever I want since I am pregnant.. which I wasn’t like last time around.. and holy cow, it is showing. I gained 7lbs in less than 2 weeks!! How is that even possible?! I’ll tell you how.. not moving and eating a zillion ice cream sandwiches a day. Uggg. Plugged my Fitbit in last night (at last!!!) and am back at it as of today after seeing the number on the scale. Obviously I need to gain weight but I know about 5 of this was not from baby!!
I always forget about the bar code!