Lose Weight with Free On-line Diet Tools
Losing just 5% to 7% of your total body weight can lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. If you already have diabetes, keeping your weight down is essential for optimum diabetes management. It can seem like the warnings about obesity and health risks are everywhere. But how do you get started on the road to better health? How do you keep track of fat grams and carbohydrates, as well as calories in and calories out? There are free on-line tools to help you on your way.
- Calorie-Count.com - offers free weight loss tools such as food logs, activity logs, nutritional information on many different foods including restaurant meals and fast food, and an active, supportive community to help you organize your weight loss. There are a few unique features also:
- The "walkthrough" is an automated demo which literally "walks" you through the website so that you can fully utilize all the features.
- The recipe analyzer allows you to enter your own recipes and figures out the nutritional facts for you.
- The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) offers an interactive Menu Planner.
- The Menu Planner helps you figure out your total calories, fat grams, and carbs for the day and let's you know whether you've stayed within your limits. The site also can help you calculate your BMI. The site offers lots of information about good nutrition and calorie requirements, too.
- FitDay.com Free Diet and Weight Loss Journal - offers a free online diet tool that includes a large data base of different kinds of food including many name brands. It breaks down calories, carbs, fat grams, and more and figures out serving sizes. It also show your progress with pie charts and line graphs, while keeping track of exercise and goals. You may also journal about your feelings at FitDay as you journey towards your weight loss goals.
- My-Calorie-Counter.com - allows you to enter your food, meal by meal and gives calorie counts, fat grams, carbs, sodium and other information. It also has a variety of tools such as a BMI calculator, body fat calculator, activity and exercise list, and a weight loss ticker.
When you keep track of your food choices and calories, it can help you see where your calories are coming from and can motivate you to make better choices for long-term weight loss. Check out these pages for even more nutritional information to get you started on your way.
- FAQ's About Carbohydrates
- Exercising With Diabetes
- Keep Your Kids Diabetes Free
- Meal Plans for Diabetes Management
- Quick Facts to Know About Eating and Diabetes
Photo by David Lat
Comments
I really believe that diabetes type II can be controlled by changing diet, and exercise. What do you think?
Great information. Thanks.
Hi Lucy,
Yes it is possible to control Type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise, for some people. Not everyone will have the same results. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, blood glucose levels are still too high. Then medication is necessary, because chronically high blood glucose levels will cause long-term complications of diabetes, such as damage to blood vessels and nerves. This can cause neuropathy (numbness, tingling and pain in your legs or feet), nephropathy (kidney damage) or retinopathy (impaired vision and eventually blindness).
If you have Type 2 diabetes, work with your doctor to see if losing weight, exercise and good eating habits can control your blood glucose. Test your blood glucose often to make sure you’re staying in a good range.
If you are already on medication, don’t just stop. Again, work with your doctor to make sure that going off your medication is a good idea for you.
Good luck to you, and let me know how it goes.
Deb Manzella
Hi Deb. I just wanted to chime in about FitDay.com. It’s a great resource but I found their database somewhat limited, especially when it comes to restaurant foods. For this reason, I decided to add a feature to my website (DietFacts.com) which allows FitDay users to easily copy info from DietFacts over to their custom foods list. Just look for the yellow button directly below the DietFacts food labels. Enjoy!
Thanks, Kelly. Actually Calorie-count.com is the most complete site I’ve seen yet. Check it out.