As part of my workout routine, each Sunday morning I post on Twitter my pounds lost, calories eaten, calories burned and water intake.  Last Sunday’s tweet read:

“Fitness check-in: -6 pounds this week, -6 pounds since March 1. Avg calories eaten: 1,783/day; Avg burned: 4,007/day; water: 80oz/day.”

Part of my routine is tracking all my calories. And it’s amazing how much you DON’T each when you know you have to put it in journal form.  The program is called FitDay.  There’s a software version and an online version.  I paid the $20 for the software license.   Their database of activities is vast (even tracking things like “sitting on toilet” or “pushing a wheelchair – non-occupational setting”).  But I don’t go that far.

Here’s a snapshot of today’s activity:

Activity or food intake, the program tracks everything, even when you’re not working out such as sleep, digestion, light seated activity.  Then when you add workout events like elliptical or weight lifting, it auto adjusts the rest of the day’s hours to reflect the activity you put in so that you don’t go over 24 hours in a day.  In this example, I burned 1,137 calories at the gym (879 cardio + 258 free weights), burned 2,726 calories through normal body activity, and 386 through digestion. All equals 4,249 total calories burned.

This is a great feature of the program, since it gives me a more accurate representation and I can calculate what I’m on track to lose by end of week.

If I subtract total calories eaten (2,089)  from total calories burned (4,249) that equals 2,160 calories lost.  If that was my average for all 7 days (7 x 2,160), that would total 15,120 calories lost all week.  Divide that by 3,500–the number calories in a pound–and results show I’m on track to lose 4.32 pounds, or 4 pounds rounded down.

It’s a fairly straight forward assessment, and for the most part it’s been right on target.  The numbers are great to look at and analyze, but the pie graph can’t be beat.  I like seeing my protein intake high and my fat low.  There are many other great features of FitDay, so I give it my personal endorsement, although they are poor at keeping the software updated (1 new release over the past several years).  But not having upgrades doesn’t affect the overall use of the program.