Or create your own customized entry. This is especially possible when cooking. “You can manually enter the ingredients and their quantities for more accurate tracking,” he says Tay. A useful tool to have for this purpose is a kitchen scale. “This improves the accuracy of homemade food entries and improves tracking accuracy.”
But don’t worry if you can’t find the perfect match for your dish. Tay suggested making an educated guess based on the ingredients used and the common proportions of the dish. “This may require a bit of research into standard recipes, or you could seek the support of a nutritionist for guidance.”
Another complaint about meal tracking apps is their sustainability, or how long you can stick with a program. “Clients tell us that recording each meal is time-consuming and some find it difficult to keep up with it,” Tay said.
“While some clients find these apps useful for long-term behavior change and weight maintenance, others use them more intensively in the short term to gain insight into their eating habits,” she said. Ta.
Another downside, Tay warns, is that focusing too much on tracking all the calories, fat, sugar and salt you eat can lead to unhealthy obsessions with certain foods. For example, you may believe that a grain bowl is the most nutritionally balanced dish and avoid eating anything else for lunch and dinner. Even if you eat only stir-fried kailan, it may be nutritionally depleted.
Another pitfall is that “quantitative data overshadows the qualitative aspects of eating, such as hunger cues, satisfaction, and enjoyment of food,” Tay said.