The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Tracking Calories

The Good -

It is a great way to keep track of your calorie intake, especially when you are first starting off on your health journey, or just trying to maintain. You can see exactly how much your consuming daily, because sometimes we think we aren't eating a lot, but then when you track you shock yourself! Even still, being able to track not just the calories, but sodium intake, fat intake... etc, can help with medical issues. For example, knowing how much sodium a food item has is good to know for people who have high blood pressure. Sparkpeople's food tracker is actually pretty amazing. I feel like it has been the most hopefully, and can be very easy. Especially the app where you can scan an food item's bar-code to help add that to your food tracker!

The Bad -

Sometimes it takes so much time to enter in every meal, especially if you are having a busy day. Even though Sparkpeople makes it easy, it still can take some time. Another thing is sometimes I don't know how to track something! Like for example, I am having arroz con gondules (yellow rice with pigeon peas) for lunch right now, and it is homemade. I have no idea how to track it... I end up just putting "spanish rice" in the search bar of the food tracker, and just randomly picking one of the options that pop up. My intake count ends up being inaccurate, so I could either be over my calorie intake, or under.

The Ugly -

Since I have fallen off the wagon for the last few years I have not been tracking at all! At times I would be like "eh I am sure I am under my calories for the day so it's no big deal," or "this can't be that many calories so I should be fine." Now that I am making an effort to start fresh on spark, and track what I eat, I see that I have TOTALLY been wrong! I AM going over my calorie count for the day, even though I feel like I don't eat much throughout the day, but I have to remember that it is also WHAT I am putting in my body that just isn't the healthier option. So I am thinking to myself, while tracking my food, "THIS is why you haven't reached your goal yet!"


So lesson learned! As much as I sometimes dislike having to take the time to track my food, it is still a very important part of my journey to a healthier lifestyle! I am not a believer in completely cutting out certain food groups. That may work for some but not for others, and it definitely doesn't work for me lol. It all comes down to eating in moderation! So no I will not cut out pizza! lol but tracking it will help keep me accountable!