8 Really Useful Online Diet Tools ...

webmd.com

Counting calories can be a real chore and could be one of the reasons many of us give up. Unless we buy a pre-packed calorie counted meal (which is usually far from a decent food choice anyway), it can be a real pain having to tot up calories, or even knowing what they are in the first place. There are plenty of online calorie counters but this one is brilliant from two aspects. Firstly, you can stick any single food item in and it will return to you the calories for it in various states of preparedness. Secondly, you aren’t restricted to food ingredients; you can actually search well known food chains. If you want to know what a Dairy Queen chocolate shake will cost you nutritionally speaking, enter it in the search box, click on it and you are given the full run down of calories, fats, energy, sugar etc etc.

If you want a quick and easy way to calculate your BMI (Body Mass Index) go to nhlbisupport.com. All you need is your height and weight. You get the choice of metric or imperial units and there’s a Spanish language version too.

glycemicindex.com

For any diet that requires you to ‘count’ units of some kind, having access to online diet tools that takes the hassle and time out of finding the unit values is a god send. Here’s a Gi calculator that makes following the Gi diet a lot easier. Not only will it tell you the Gi values, but you can search for specific items under or within specific Gi value ranges.

webmd.com
Have you ever struggled with diets that tell you eat a ‘portion’ and you really have no idea what a portion means. You might have grown up in a house were portions were always on the heavy side, so having something in hand to help you interpret what a reasonable portion is, is going to prove useful. I think this is one of the great online diet aids. It makes understanding portions really easy by including images that we can all easily relate to. Did you know 1 cup of cooked pasta is equivalent to the size of a baseball?

Food Pyramid

The term healthy diet is bandied around, and we all pretend or think we know exactly what it means. In fact, most of us only have a rough idea of the principle. If you want to check how healthy your diet actually is, or maybe you are trying to repair your relationship with food, check out the food pyramid to see how much of which food groups you should be eating.

freedieting.com

Do you feel that sometimes dieting has its own language? We get the general idea but then a fancy scientific word creeps in and you’re floundering as to what it exactly means. Stress no more. Stick this terrific glossary in your favorites and problem solved. It takes you from A to Z – well, actually, can you think of a diet term beginning with z?

Some online diet tools are not about losing weight, but are still valuable. HDL, LDL, good, bad … do you know your cholesterol? Underweight, on weight, or overweight – it doesn’t matter, the combination of foods you eat may still mean you have a high cholesterol level. If you are concerned about your intake, or don’t know what are good and low cholesterol foods, check out apjcn.nhri.org.tw

webmd.com

I can only vouch for this personally because the test process is designed to be specific for individuals, but I thought it was one of the most useful and interesting online diet aids I found. After taking you through a series of questions it churns out a personal diet plan. I won’t spoil it for you because it is an interesting little exercise I think that anyone considering going on a diet or wanting to adopt a more healthy lifestyle will find useful. It’s worth the few minutes it takes.

I do hope you find these online diet tools of use. If you’ve found some other great diet aids please do share them.

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