Is there a way to use FitDay if you cook your own food, or is there an alternate site I could use? Otherwise, it seems to only work for people who eat packaged food or constituent ingredients in isolation.

This is an excellent question. It’s also a question that’s very difficult for me to answer. All of the different calorie counters out there are slightly different. I’m not saying that fitday, which is the first one I ever used, is any better than the others. But it works just fine for me and I think it’s flexible enough to work for anyone who wants to make it work for them.

I don’t think that fitday is a perfect system for tracking calories. In fact, there’s a lot of room for improvement (searching the database can be a bear). But it does work for me. Just the act of inputting food into the website and watching the list of what I ate that day get longer is enough for me to be mindful of what I’m eating. The actual calorie count that I get from fitday doesn’t really matter. All that matters to me is that I’m close. Losing weight and getting fit slowly is what I’m after. If the weight coming off is delayed by a few days, weeks, or months because I’m off on my calorie count by a bit, I’m OK with that. Fitday helps me to make better eating choices and eat approximately the correct number of calories each day, that’s why I like it.

It sounds like skuud is more of a cook from scratch chef than I am, or at least she cooks things that are more complicated than I do. But I still think that she could make it work for her. Fitday is definitely much easier to use with packaged food because the nutrition information is right there on the box. All you have to do is type in the numbers and you’re good to go. But, it is also very possible to use if you cook from scratch.

But what about inputting foods? Tonight for dinner, I made broiled salmon with a honey ginger glaze, steamed jasmine rice, and corn with butter and salt. When I sat down at the computer, I didn’t add up all of the calories from the ingredients and divide by the number of servings created and then multiply by the number of servings I ate. That IS too complicated. Instead, I “deconstructed” my dinner. I made separate food entries for all of the ingredients in my dinner and then I estimated how much of each of those ingredients I ate based on how much went into the whole meal. I know my calorie count wasn’t perfectly accurate, but it was close enough for me to keep tabs on what I ate. And, since the meal was healthy, I don’t really care how much I ate.

Basically, if counting every calorie that goes into you mouth is very important to you, I think fitday would be a hard (but still possible) site to use. However, I don’t think that any of the other calorie counters out there would be much easier to use. But if you want to get a general idea of how many calories you’re eating, fitday is a fine tool.

update: I recently received another email from skuud. In it, she writes, “Recipezaar allows you to enter recipes and then get the per-serving nutrition facts. You can then fill those in on Fitday. It still takes a bit of effort, but less than the spreadsheet routine.”

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Related Articles at Get Fit Slowly:

• Wednesday Weekly Weigh-In #1
• Online Diet & Exercise Trackers
• Food Propaganda Is Everywhere!

One of the things that I struggle with the most is portion control.  I’m not good at eating just one serving of cookies, or chips, or ice cream.  Nor am I good at eating one serving of chicken, or spinach, or blueberries.

Whenever I find little gems that help me win these tiny battles with portion control, I like to write about them so that they’ll stay fresh in my mind for a bit.  Here are some recent tips that I’ve found and would like to incorporate in to my eating habits.

Learn from your Diet mistakes–Learning to eat healthy is a journey.  Many of us have spent a life time acquiring bad habits, we can’t expect them to be erased over night.  Try and focus on the victories while still being mindful (and learning from ) of the defeats.  Eventually, the victories will start to outnumber the defeats and it will get easier to maintain healthy habits.  Until then, fight hard and DON’T give up!

Don’t use visual clues when eating–Many of us stop eating when the container is empty.  We eat until the bag of chips is gone, or until our plate is clean.  We eat with our eyes instead of our stomachs.  We eat until our pants feel uncomfortable and THEN we stop.  How can we stop doing these things and start paying attention to when our stomach tells us we’re full?  There are lots of ways:

• Use smaller plates
• Eat while sitting
• Concentrate on eating when you’re eating–don’t multitask!
• Eat slowly
• Taste your food and enjoy it

All of these little tricks will help you become a healthier eater.

Make your own Portion Control Bags–If you know how much you’re supposed to eat, but have a hard time not  reaching into that bag of chips or box of crackers buy snacks that are already packaged into 1-portion increments.  This may cost more money and be less environmental, but if it’s the only way that it gets you to control your eating, it may be worth it.  You could also make, reuse, and recycle your own single portion servings of your favorite snacks with ziploc bags.

If none of these tricks work for you, then do what I need to start doing–buy carrots, not cookies!  Do you have any tricks to help you maintain your proper portion size?

One of my first tasks was learning to track every penny I spent. As I learned to do this, I didn’t worry about anything else. I didn’t try to reduce my spending. I didn’t judge myself for buying too many comic books. I just tried to get into the habit of recording my spending.

So, too, with physical fitness.

As I prepare to resume my journey, I realize that there are a lot of things I need to do in order to succeed. When I look at the big picture, it can be intimidating.

So, instead, I’m granting myself permission to think small. As with personal finance, I’m going to begin by tracking what I do: both my caloric intake and my physical exercise. I’m not going to judge myself. (Well, I’m going to try not to anyhow.) I’m not going to try to eat only healthy foods. Right now, I want to begin painting a picture.

I’ll confess that I am simultaneously shooting for a calorie deficit, which means I’m incorporating two tasks at once. But I’m not judging myself if I miss. If I aim for 1800 calories each day, but one day end up at 2300 or 2800, so what? Actual calorie reduction is Step Two. Today I am focused on Step One, and that’s just tracking my intake.

I mentioned the other day that I couldn’t make myself use FitDay. Somebody suggested using an iPhone app. I almost dismissed this idea. Although I have an iPhone, I haven’t actually downloaded any applications for it. Something made me change my mind, though, and I’m glad I did.

After a week of use, I think Lose It! is brilliant. It’s cute, customizable, and convenient. It’s not exactly robust, but in a way that’s better. Its sheer simplicity keeps me focused on the only thing that’s important for me right now: counting calories. Look for a full review in the future. (One downside: bizarre units of measure. “Pieces” for tortilla chips instead of ounces? Makes my head hurt.)

I have to admit, I’m fairly pleased with myself over the past week. I’ve been diligent about tracking my calories, and though I’m not making it a priority to reduce portions and to eat healthfully, for the most part I’m doing so anyhow. I’ve also gone for a three-mile walk on each of four afternoons. This feels like a good start.

Meanwhile, GFS/GRS-reader bethh struck a deal with me. She’s mailing me an indoor bicycle trainer (the exact model I had put on my Amazon wishlist), and I’m going to send her a check and some of Kris’ canned goods. By the end of the month, I hope to be adding regular exercise to my list. With my bike in my living room, I’ll have no excuse!

There’s so much information out there, and so many different areas of “child health” that I could focus on every day; I sometimes feel totally overwhelmed.  This morning, after my 4:30 gym session (that’s 3 in a row for all you doubters out there) I found a new “Well Guide” on the New York Times web site.  It’s pretty interesting for us parents.  There’s a lot of information about raising healthy kids and it covers a variety of topics ranging from picky eating habits, to “screen time”, to exercise.

I haven’t taken the time to read all of this site, it’s pretty big.  And I’m not saying that I agree with everything I read on it.  But, it is a decent website with some helpful information.  And if nothing else, it will at least get us thinking about some of the topics that affect our children’s health.

“I have no clearer definition in my mind of what it means to be ‘fit’ than I do of what it means to be ‘rich’,” I wrote. “In some ways, I believe fitness is more about the journey than any destination.”

Reader response
Get Fit Slowly readers offered some great comments in response. Greenman2001 wrote:

Being healthy means being disease-free and living a lifestyle that doesn’t contribute to the creation of disease in your own body. You don’t live to be a hundred by running a marathon: you live to be a hundred by being disease-free. So, as a practical matter, I think “being fit” incorporates both good physical health and a lifestyle that promotes and perpetuates good health.

He noted that Walter Willett, chair of the nutrition department at Harvard, recommends the following:

• Don’t smoke
• Maintain a BMI below 25
• 30 minutes of exercise a day
• Diet characterized by low intake of trans fat
• Diet with a high ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fats
• High whole-grain intake
• Two servings of fish a week
• RDA of folic acid
• At least 5 grams of alcohol a day

Greenman observed that Mac and I tend to focus more on exercise than diet, and reminded me that both are important to obtaining fitness. He’s right. Exercise isn’t my weak spot — food is.

Lucas pointed out that there’s a difference between fitness and health. “You could successfully train to run a marathon on a diet consisting entirely of donuts,” he wrote. “This would make you fitter (you can run a marathon!), but less healthy (you’re only eating donuts!).”

Finally, Sheamus also wrote that it’s important not to confuse fitness and health. “I would suggest that, simply, fitness is being able to engage in rigorous exercise for 60-minutes, daily,” said Sheamus, “and being strong and healthy enough to do it again 24 hours later.”

CrossFit
James Barton, another commenter, suggested I read the October 2002 issue of The CrossFit Journal. I’ve heard a lot about CrossFit, though I’m still not completely clear on the concept. Here’s the program’s philosophy on how to achieve “world class fitness in 100 words”:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, clean and jerk, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.

Sounds great, huh? And the web site offers plenty of documentation. Unfortunately, I feel like even the introductory material isn’t very accessible to the uninitiated. It’s all marketing speak. I’d like to know more about what CrossFit really is and how it’s different from other fitness regimens.

According to the article recommended by James Barton:

We have observed that nearly every measurable value of health can be placed on a continuum that ranges from sickness to wellness to fitness. Though tougher to measure, we would even add mental health to this observation. Depression is clearly mitigated by proper diet and exercise, i.e., genuine fitness.

For example, a blood pressure of 160/95 is pathological, 120/70 is normal or healthy, and 105/55 is consistent with an athlete’s blood pressure; a body fat of 40% is pathological, 20% is normal or healthy, and 10% is fit. We observe a similar ordering for bone density, triglycerides, muscle mass, flexibility, HDL or “good cholesterol”, resting heart rate, and dozens of other common measures of health. Many authorities (e.g. Mel Siff, the NSCA) make a clear distinction between health and fitness. Frequently they cite studies that suggest that the fit may not be health protected. A close look at the supporting evidence invariably reveals the studied group is endurance athletes and, we suspect, endurance athletes on a dangerous fad diet (high carb, low fat, low protein).

Done right, fitness provides a great margin of protection against the ravages of time and disease. Where you find otherwise examine the fitness protocol, especially diet. Fitness is and should be “super-wellness.” Sickness, wellness, and fitness are measures of the same entity. A fitness regimen that doesn’t support health is not CrossFit.

None of this really changes my mind. I still think fitness is more about the journey than the destination. However, I do like the notion that there are actual measurable elements of fitness: blood pressure, BMI, fat intake, amount of exercise, etc. I also like the idea that there are many sub-elements of fitness. I think that my recent problems with flexibility are evidence of this.

Despite the fact that I’ve been derailed for the past few days (and I really have been — eating poorly and no exercise), I intend to continue my quest for fitness. It’s been a pleasure so far, both learning about fitness in general and learning about my own body. I look forward to continued progress in the future.

A couple readers were taken aback. “Do you have a full time job? How can you afford a whole lot of exercise?” Juan wrote. And Mike said, “How do you fit all this exercise time into a day if you have a 9-to-5 job?”

The simple answer is: I quit my job.

Big changes lead to big changes
Sometimes in order to make big changes in our lives, we have to completely alter our daily habits and routines. For years, my biggest excuse for not exercising was that I didn’t have time. Between work, writing, and Real Life, there was no time for physical fitness.

When I quit my job in March to become a “professional blogger” (a term that, while accurate, sounds ludicrous, even to me), I no longer had any excuses. But I didn’t need them.

My first day as a full-time writer was also my first day of regular exercise. The results have been astounding. In the past four months, I’ve developed a dedication to physical fitness that has surprised me.

Small changes lead to big changes, too
Though I had to quit my job before I could make time for fitness, that’s certainly not a requirement. You don’t need to go to the same extremes to make big changes in your life. You don’t need to quit your job to make time for regular exercise. The key is to analyze your own life, to know your strengths and your weaknesses, and to change your habits in small ways that lead to big results for you.

In 1997, for example, I lost 40 pounds by making a few simple changes to my lifestyle. When I got up in the morning, instead of reading the paper, I spent half an hour walking (or, eventually, jogging). I began to bike the six miles to work. During lunch, I’d go for a walk or ride my bike instead of loafing in the break room. I also began to track my calorie consumption. Individually, these changes were only minor alterations to my lifestyle. Taken together, they yielded 42 pounds of weight loss in six months.

More recently, my wife, Kris, has begun to make small changes to her habits. She’s going to bed a little earlier so that she has more free time in the morning before she leaves for work. She uses this time to go for a walk or to practice yoga. (Since our Wii died, she’s been unable to use the Wii Fit for her yoga fix. Instead, she’s developed her own routines which she does in the kitchen while listening to NPR.)

Together, Kris and I are trying to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and we’re making an effort to have fish a couple times per week. (We both like fish; in the past, however, we’ve never thought to prepare it.)

Eight easy ways to change your habits
It can be difficult at first to determine just where you can squeeze exercise and healthy diet into your life. But I’ve found that, with time, it’s surprisingly easy to make the small changes that lead to big results. (And which lead to bigger changes of habit down the road.) Here are some techniques to make this process easier:

• Do what you love. If you don’t like to run, then don’t force yourself to run. If you don’t like broccoli, don’t force yourself to eat broccoli. Find exercises and healthful foods that you enjoy, and then make them a priority. You’re much likelier to stick to a new habit if it’s something that brings you pleasure instead of something that feels like a chore.
• Remove barriers from the things you want to do. If you bring home a bag of carrots, don’t stick it in the produce drawer. If you’re like me, you’ll never remember it’s there! Put it on the top shelf. Better yet, open the bag and dump the carrots into a ziploc bag or other easy-to-access container. Make it easy to do the right thing. Here’s a real-life example: I used to keep my bike and helmet in the garage. Makes sense, right? But that small thing was a huge barrier, which meant I rarely rode it. Instead, I brought the helmet inside and chained the bike to a tree in front of the house. Now it’s easy to go for a ride.
• Create barriers to prevent poor choices. On the other hand, it’s vital to make it more difficult to choose those things that are counter-productive to the life you want to lead. For me, that means not bringing crap food into the house. If I have cookies or ice cream or cold cereal close at hand, I’m going to eat them. If Starcraft is installed on the computer, I’m going to play it. If you, too, struggle with self-control, make it more difficult to do those things that sabotage your goals. (Developing self-control is, of course, the key to long-term success. I’m still working on that.)
• Devote space to the good stuff. If you can, set aside space for your exercise equipment or for your healthy food. Nickel at Fit 36 created an exercise room in his home in which he installed a rowing machine, some dumbbells, and an elliptical trainer. Though we never set out to do so, Kris and I have been gradually converting one room in our house into a yoga/Wii studio. (Yes, we really think of the Wii as a piece of exercise equipment. Dance Dance Revolution is very good exercise.) Meanwhile, I’ve devoted the top shelf of the fridge to healthy food.

• Tap the power of groups. Peer pressure can be a marvelous thing. If I had tried to trainf or the marathon on my own, I would have failed by now. But Pam, knowing her student well, suggest that I train with a group. This has made all the difference. My sister-in-law does Pilates with a group. Jim at Journal of Healthy Living even lifts weights with a group. Many people, of course, play team sports. Others seek group support to develop healthy eating habits. Working with other people can be a powerful motivator.
• Make use of “dead” time. Have a little extra time in the day? Go for a walk. Prepare a salad for the coming week’s dinners. Since my doctor prescribed stretching several times a day, I’ve learned to squeeze my routine in at odd times: while talking with friends after a meal, while waiting in line, while helping Kris in the garden. You might find a way to exercise while watching Lost, or during your lunch break, or first thing in the morning. (For me, using Saturday morning for a long marathon training run is a great use of “dead” time.)
• Don’t sweat mistakes. Everyone takes days off from fitness and diets. We all indulge ourselves now and then. I used to view a couple bad days as failure, and this made it even more difficult for me to return to my healthy habits. This isn’t the case. Diet and exercise are not “all or nothing”. If you make a mistake or take a break, enjoy the moment, then move on. Return to your new routine as soon as possible.
• Get fit slowly. Don’t try to do everything at once. This is difficult advice for me to give — I am the King of Compulsion. When I begin a diet or a fitness regimen, I want to do it full bore. But I’m beginning to learn this isn’t always the smartest technique. Change your habits slowly, starting with manageable chunks. Make more changes as you master the easy stuff.

The best way to begin eating healthy food or to exercise regularly is to make these choices habits. Sometimes it’s possible to make big changes to your lifestyle that yield impressive results, as when I quit my job and suddenly freed time to work out whenever I wanted. But it’s also possible to develop good habits in a normal nine-to-five world. It just takes a little planning and a willingness to make small changes to your lifestyle.

This post, like many others I read here, makes me wonder how exactly you’re defining the word “fit.” I’d love to see a blog post on that topic.

This seems like an innocuous question. In reality, it cuts to the heart of my goals and motivation. What is it I’m trying to achieve? What does it mean to be fit, and how will I know when I get there? I’ve been thinking about Greenman’s question for the past week.

What does it mean to be rich?
One of the recurring themes at my money blog is the difficulty in defining what it means to be rich (or wealthy). How much money is enough? Is money even a good measure of wealth? Once a person is rich, what then?

There are several problems in defining “rich”:

• The meaning of the term varies from culture-to-culture. Who is rich in Somalia may not be rich in Canada.
• “Rich” means different things to different people. What you view as rich, I may view as middle-class.
• Even for an individual, the definition of rich may be a moving target. If my fifteen-year-old self could see my current self, he’d think I was rich, for example. But I don’t feel rich.

The definition of “rich” is largely subjective. When I talk about getting rich slowly, what I’m really promoting is improving your current financial situation. There’s no finish line. There’s no ultimate goal. There’s just ongoing measured progress to a better life.

What does it mean to be fit?
The same is true with physical fitness: it’s not a destination, but a process. There’s little agreement even among experts regarding what “fit” actually means.

Body mass index, for example, has been used by many medical professionals and organizations (including the U.S. government) as a measure of individual fitness. But in recent years, some have disputed the usefulness of the body mass index.

Or what about the food pyramid? What was once promoted as a useful guide to nutritious food came under fire and was ultimately revised. But how long will the new guidelines be deemed definitive?

To me, it seems senseless to seek some sort of objective measure of fitness. Each of us is different. We have different bodies. We have different minds. We have different goals. Instead, I think we ought to have individual standards of fitness, based on our personal strengths and weaknesses.

Personal fitness
On January 1st of this year, I weighed 207 pounds. I could do three pushups. I could not run for even ten minutes. I could not bench press 60 pounds. I ate poorly. I did not exercise.

Today I weigh 190 pounds. I can do twenty consecutive pushups (and over 50 with short breaks). I can run nearly four hours at a time. I can bench press 100 pounds. My diet is still not ideal, but it is improving. (”I can’t believe you’re my husband,” Kris said the other day after watching me choose fruis and vegetables.) Not only do I exercise most days of the week — I actually look forward to doing so. I continue to take the advice of Get Fit Slowly readers and implement it into my life.

But am I fit? I’m certainly more fit than I was six months ago, but there’s still a lot of work remaining.

And striving to drink only water for one month? Beverages are one of my weaknesses. I drink more alcohol than I should. I drink too much soda pop. I drink a lot of juice. My daily diet is filled with too much sugar, alcohol, and caffeine. How much of these should a fit person drink? I don’t know. But I know that I want to drink less of all of them, and so I’m willing to try a one-month water-only experiment.

Conclusion
Ultimately, I have no clearer definition in my mind of what it means to be “fit” than I do of what it means to be “rich”. In some ways, I believe fitness is more about the journey than any destination. I believe that each of us — regardless of our personal fitness levels — should strive to become more fit than we already are. It’s up to you to decide what that means in your case.

For me, this means a continued battle to develop healthier habits: to eat sensibly, to exercise often, and to get better sleep. The pursuit of fitness is a gift I’m giving myself. It makes me feel good, both physically and mentally.

What about you? What does the word “fit” mean to you?