How to Keep Track of Your Diet Without Counting Calories
Keeping track of what you eat can help you make better choices because you know that whatever you choose, you’ll have to write it down. But that doesn’t mean you have to loop on each calorie or ask the app to do weight loss calculations. If you just want to see general patterns in your diet, YouAte (free for iOS and Android) is the easy way to do it.
To register a meal on YouAte, you simply take a photo of it and decide if it was an “on the way” or “off-route” meal. You must define what this means. If you’re trying to eat more vegetables and lean proteins but are stuck on an office pizza for lunch today, this might be an unusual lunch. No judgment. (At the end of the week, YouAte will let you know what percentage of your meals were on the way.)
After eating, you can answer the questions that the app asks:
- Why did you eat? (Some of the options are Hungry, It’s Time, Communication, and Cravings. You can choose more than one.)
- Who did you eat with? (friends, family, etc.)
- How was it? (forgettable, good, awesome)
- Where did you eat? (at the table, right? Luckily, they have options for Desktop, Car, TV, etc.)
- How was it done? (Home, restaurant, etc.)
- How did you feel about it? (Satisfied, still hungry, full, guilty …)
When I logged several meals with the app, I didn’t find the questions too judgmental or intrusive, but that’s a personal opinion. They just made me think, oh yeah, I think I’m eating at my table again. Answering how it made me feel was also a new idea: instead of realizing later that I was still hungry, I think about it before leaving the table (uh, table). Pro tip: Turn on the setting that will notify you 20 minutes after you check in for lunch so you can come back and answer these questions.
This is not an app that can help you accurately track nutrients or weight loss. He has no idea what is in the dishes you are photographing; you decide. You can log your meals with this app and a more accurate app like Cron-o-meter, but then you do twice the work. However, it can be useful for managing the psychological aspects of your meal plan if you’re willing to put in a few extra minutes.