My tools for weight loss

The two biggest contributing factors to my weight loss journey are Monarch Medical Weight Loss and MyFitnessPal.com.  Here are my breakdowns and reviews:

Monarch Medical Weight Loss (www.monarchmedical.net)

I've been an on-again off-again patient at Monarch over the last couple years, and I had tried MyFitnessPal once before but never used it to the best of it's ability.  This last time I went to Monarch, they figured out all the good stuff like how many calories I need to eat to maintain my weight, how many I need to eat to lose weight, how many grams of protein I should have a day, how many meals I should eat, the types of foods I should focus on, how it's better to eat the same thing every day. They give you little journals to write everything in, but I totally suck at doing that.  I've failed after a day and a half most of the time.

MyFitnessPal (www.myfitnesspal.com)

But my gal Brandy suggested MyFitnessPal.com prior to me joining Monarch again, and I did it for about a week, but ended up quitting and going back to my normal habits.  When I went to my Monarch appointment they suggested it to me, and this time I decided to give it a try.  I LOVE IT!  Especially since I got a new phone for Christmas and have a working camera again.  The awesome thing is that you can take a picture of the barcode, on almost anything, and it will give you all the nutritional information for it.  Takes all the searching out of the picture, you decide how many servings, you save it, and bingo!!!  There are places for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.  You can also track water intake, exercise (both cardio and strength).  The program also breaks down all your intake of food by day, or by week.  You can see pie charts, bar graphs, etc. You can also track your weight, though on the mobile app, you don't see the last weight except when you are logging a new one.  The graph just shows a line where the weight is. However, on the website, you can get much more detailed reports of the information you are logging.  You can pull past days eating history!  It's awesome!  So while many people don't feel it is something that works, tracking your calories definitely works!  You just have to want it!!!