Want to lose weight? There's an app for that!

I think I have said this at least 987 times, but it bears repeating:  the single best way to be held accountable for the food choices you make is to keep a food journal every day. It is a visual reminder of how many calories you are consuming, in addition to the nutrients your body is getting. If you need more reasons why this might be beneficial to you, please see "Dear Diary" from July:  http://gymjunkie-katie.blogspot.com/2011/07/dear-diary.html.

I have spent the past week trying out an application on my new iPhone called "Lose It!" (yes, I am excited about it, but the name of the app comes with an exclamation point). Let me start by saying that this tool is INCREDIBLE. It takes all of my personal information and asks me how many pounds I want to lose each week, ranging from maintaining current weight to losing 2 pounds per week. From there, it gives me a daily calorie allowance. Every morning, I open the app and begin by inputting my exercise for that day, which immediately increases my calorie allowance (yay!), and then I enter my breakfast.Throughout the day, I continue to log everything I eat and all the exercise I get that day (you can even count vacuuming!); your calorie allowance is adjusted throughout the day with each addition you make.

The food and exercise database is incredibly expansive; I have had almost no instances of not being able to find a food or exercise. For those rare occasions when you can't find what you're looking for, you are able to quickly and easily enter your own custom food and exercise, which it not only adds to your log for that day, but also saves for future use. For example, I wear a heart rate monitor that accurately records my calories burned, so I usually enter that information each day. Every calorie burned should count!

Those of you without iPhones (do these people exist?) are probably asking, "What about ME?!" Never fear - most smart phones now have apps with similar capabilities to the Lose It! app. On my old Blackberry, I used an app from Livestrong that had very helpful tools to track both food and exercise:  http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/blackberry-calorie-tracker/.

If you don't have a smart phone, you can also use the Lose It! app on your computer:  http://www.loseit.com/index.jsp. It's not as convenient, but you can take the notebook idea from "Dear Diary" and then input your information online at the end of the day so that you get the comparative data that this program offers.

If you know of any other apps or online programs that you can give feedback about, feel free to post them in the comments section below!