Livestrong

This week I have been under the weather. :(

So I've mostly been taking it easy.

Eating a lot of fruit

And soup

And sleeping.

Since I have been channeling my inner hibernating animal this week, I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about my experience with Livestrong.


The Livestrong App was the single most instrumental tool in my weight loss and the advent of my committment to healthy living. The Livestrong App is $2.99 in the App Store and so worth it.

Through Livestrong you create a profile with your height, weight, activity level and weight loss goal. Based on this, Livestrong will generate your target daily caloric intake. Using the "Food" tab you can use the search tool for what you've eaten throughout the day. Because you Livestrong users can post things that they've eaten on the server, I always double check the labels or the nutrtitional info from restaurant websites to validate the calories reported on the app.


Once you've logged your food, you can use the "Fitness" tab to search activities and track any exercise you've done throughout the day. Same general rule applies here as it does for the "Food" tab, the calories burned may not always be accurate so I double check these as well.


The "My Plate" tab tracks your daily progress using calories consumed and calories burned to show you where you net out for the day and what percentage of your total calorie goal your net calories represent.


For me, the Livestrong App was not about obessing over every calorie consumed, it was a tool to get me to look at the cost/benefit analysis of what I was putting in my body. I learned to focus on nutrient dense foods because I quickly realized that this was the key to staying satisfied and feeling full.

The Livestrong App has totally changed the way that I eat. My meals now consist more heavily of fresh fruits, vegetable, and whole grains versus the full fat dairy and processed meals that I was relying on before.

Having reached my maintenance weight, I no longer track my food daily because the nutritional value of my food has become a cornerstone of every meal.

*A couple of notes regarding Livestrong:

     -If you do not have a smart phone, you can use the livestrong tools on livestrong.com but I strongly favor the phone version because of the ease of being able to track your food as you are eating it. I find that it is too easy to conveniently forget your snacking throughout the day if you only log at night.

     -The Livestrong App does not appear to have any built in calorie base floor. That is, if you are 105lbs and want to lose 2lbs per week, it will generate an obscene daily calorie goal of 600 calories per day or something ridiculous. Please use your own good judgment and use this as a helpful tracking tool. DO NOT fall into a trap of trying to maintain a dangerous starvation diet. If you are concerned about your daily caloric goal on Livestrong, I would encourage you to check with a doctor.