Keeping online food diaries helps shed pounds
Leanna Payton
Issue date: 1/16/09 Section: Lifestyles
It is no secret that dieting is one of the most common New Year's resolutions, and with the convenience of the Internet, dieting has become easier with online food diaries. They are a way of recording what one eats on a daily basis to keep track of his or her caloric intake. Because of their popularity, these diaries have replaced the traditional way of personal food journals.
Many studies have shown that people who keep such food diaries are more likely to lose weight and keep it off, according to WebMD. A researcher from one of the Web site's recent studies found that people keeping a food diary six days a week lost twice as much weight compared to those who kept records once a week or less.
A popular online food diary Web site is TweetWhatYouEat.com, a Twitter-based food diary. Twitter is a micro-blogging Web site designed to answer the question, "What are you doing right now?" Similarly, TWYE asks, "What did you have to eat today?" Users can track what they eat through Twitter by adding food items to a personal food diary on the Web site by sending a text message, sending an instant message or using the Internet.
"It allows people to think about what they just ate by going through the motion of sending a text, so to make changes in their diet," said Alex Ressi, founder of TWYE. "Rather than keeping one in writing, you track your calorie intake through a Web browser. Since eating takes place at a lot of different places, it's very easy."
For example, when users set their accounts on TWYE, they set them to their standards of what a cheeseburger is. When that person is at lunch and eats a cheeseburger, he or she sends a text message or instant message to TWYE and the Web site calculates the calories automatically.
"With a pen you have to calculate the calories yourself, but this way you can use natural language and the system will match the intake," Ressi said.
Freshman Maegan Cook used an online food diary for a health class in high school and said it was beneficial for her.
Many studies have shown that people who keep such food diaries are more likely to lose weight and keep it off, according to WebMD. A researcher from one of the Web site's recent studies found that people keeping a food diary six days a week lost twice as much weight compared to those who kept records once a week or less.
A popular online food diary Web site is TweetWhatYouEat.com, a Twitter-based food diary. Twitter is a micro-blogging Web site designed to answer the question, "What are you doing right now?" Similarly, TWYE asks, "What did you have to eat today?" Users can track what they eat through Twitter by adding food items to a personal food diary on the Web site by sending a text message, sending an instant message or using the Internet.
"It allows people to think about what they just ate by going through the motion of sending a text, so to make changes in their diet," said Alex Ressi, founder of TWYE. "Rather than keeping one in writing, you track your calorie intake through a Web browser. Since eating takes place at a lot of different places, it's very easy."
For example, when users set their accounts on TWYE, they set them to their standards of what a cheeseburger is. When that person is at lunch and eats a cheeseburger, he or she sends a text message or instant message to TWYE and the Web site calculates the calories automatically.
"With a pen you have to calculate the calories yourself, but this way you can use natural language and the system will match the intake," Ressi said.
Freshman Maegan Cook used an online food diary for a health class in high school and said it was beneficial for her.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Louis
posted 1/16/09 @ 11:45 AM CST
I agree with the student Justin Hall, there is so much more to tracking foods than just calories. For example, I use the website FoodsDatabase.com to log my foods. (Continued…)
Ginkgo
Losing Weight
posted 1/21/09 @ 2:17 AM CST
There is a lot of bad information out there. It has made America the fattest society ever. But it makes food companies and diet companies rich. Learn why salt, black coffee, salt, lean meat, salt, non-fat yogurt and salt are so fattening. (Continued…)
Post a Comment