Since Chris is a personal trainer/wellness coach he's always talking about/researching foods, nutrition, and exercises. He works with a lot of clients and has spent a lot of time finding things like apps and websites that make healthy living easier. We both don't have smart phones, but we can usually access most of these on our normal laptops anyway, and I was curious about one site/app he found called My Fitness Pal.

Chris is super wary of "calorie counting" sites because he knows the danger that severe calorie restriction can have on a person..mentally and physically. He's super against this type of dieting and really promotes clean eating and healthy amounts of exercise.

Anyways, he mentioned this site and how he was going to show it to clients interested in tracking their food and activity, and then he downloaded it on his ipod touch. My roommate (Morgan, not Chris.. :) and I have been doing Insanity together and I started to really wonder if I was getting enough/the right kind of calories for that kind of strenuous workout. I know a lot about the right kinds of foods/healthy eating, but if someone were to ask me about how many grams of protein I was getting in a day, I would have no earthly idea.

Aren't you curious? Anyways, I decided to set up a profile (it's free) and it allows you to put in everything you've eaten in a day, and any exercise you've done, and then it calculates everything for you. There is a database full of foods with the nutritional content already in there, and a full list of exercises (even just walking.) It does all the work and shows you how many calories, how much protein, how much fat, and how many carbs you've taken in. Pretty neat.

It also allows you to pick a personalized fitness plan if you're trying to gain or lose weight, and then it calculates for you how many calories you have left to eat to gain or lose, all the while compensating for any physical activity you're doing...if you exercise more for the day you'll see your calories left to eat increase.

As far as I can tell (and Chris can tell) this site is legit..check it out if you're interested in seeing what kinds of stuff you're putting in your body! Here's the link: My Fitness Pal

I think it'd be even easier to use with a smartphone (never thought I'd say that) because you wouldn't have to log on to the computer to input your data. The app is super simple, from what I can tell from Chris' itouch.