The Big Heckin Brain Drain

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Suvie Kitchen Robot

Y'all... Y'ALL!

So I got the Suvie all set up, which took like 30 minutes total (unboxing, reading instructions, putting on the counter, and filling with water). After letting it sit for a bit, I prepped it to make dinner for the following night.

The prep took under 10 minutes; basically I added 2 pieces of seasoned, frozen chicken to a pan and spritzed with oil and added salt and pepper. I then added the corn medley to another pan and topped with jalapeno cheese sauce. Then put both pans in the Suvie, scanned the recipe card and told it I wanted dinner done the next night at 7 PM. That's it!

The next night at 7, I dished out our dinner and set the Suvie to quick cool. After dinner, I spent 10 minutes washing that night's dishes and prepping for the following night's meal.

That's it. That's the cycle. I am in LOVE! 10 minutes to have dinner waiting for me the next night. Simple cleanup, simple prep, just... simple!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Since we last spoke...

Quite a bit has happened since I last updated.

I got my sweet dog that will (hopefully) be my SD. His name is Onyx and he's amazing. I am totally, fully, and entirely in love with him.

He was born on Halloween of last year and is an all-black German Shepherd named Onyx. He's going in for his advanced training starting April 1st and then SDiT training in May. He's the best and I can't stand how cute he is! JUST LOOK!

Also, I got my hernia repaired. I had surgery for it about 3 weeks ago. While the surgeon was in there, he found that I had a second one that I ignored because the primary one was so big and painful. He fixed them both, and I'm doing so much better now.

I'm still on a weight restriction until mid April (I can lift up to a gallon of milk :/ ), so no gym, weights, or exercise for me until then. And my eating is still shit BUT...

I just ordered a Suvie kitchen robot. I'm super stoked about that. Most of my poor eating choices are because it is last minute. Like, it's dinner time and I'm like "HECK IT, I'll just order doordash". With the Suvie, I set up the ingredients for dinner the night before and it'll cook it for me to be done by dinner time (whatever time I tell it to have dinner ready, that is)! I can't wait. It'll allow me to make better choices while also not having to actually cook anything myself.

Cooking at my house is a big deal because my step mom lives with me and I HATE cooking around her. I'm a great cook, but she likes to sneak a taste if I have my back turned. I can't tell you how many times I've found her sticking her fingers in my cooking food. And she's very un-hygienic so the moment I see that, I have zero desire to consume the cootie-infested meal. She also waits until I'm in the kitchen to NEED to do something in there. She'll spend all day hanging out watching TV, but the moment I start using the kitchen, she needs to crush ice and clean a bowl and anything else. It drives me nutsbananas. The other hinderance is that Onyx is still a puppy and a non-stop task. Between his dinner time, evening training sessions, potty breaks, and making sure he's not getting into things, cooking is just a very difficult task.

With the Suvie, though, I can take 10 minutes to prep the robot with the meal ingredients, tell it to have it ready the next day by 7:00 PM, and just be done with it!

What else... OH, have I posted since I lost my dream job? I don't think I have. They laid of 1/3 of the company and I, unfortunately, was in one of the positions they eliminated. I was, and still am, heartbroken. I posted about it on Facebook and a good friend of mine that used to be a client from a prior job messaged me. He said if I was interested, he could get me a contract gig with the government office he is a bigwig at. I took him up on that and am still there. They've extended my contract by 6 months, which is outstanding. AND, I'm making a about 25,000 more a year than I did at my dream job. PLUS I still have benefits! I'd give anything to be back at ST, but since that's not in the cards right now, this is an excellent compromise.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Got sick and fell off the fitness wagon :/

I got sick, but, not like me sick... more like normie sick. A cold or some such thing. And me being a good girl did not want to take it to the gym to share around, so I didn't go.

But like, I was sick for a month! And in that time, I was also super lax on my eating habits. And by that, I meant I ate whatever sounded good. I didn't limit myself to eating healthy and I even had sweets again.

Now I'm not one of those 'YOU CAN ONLY EAT THESE THREE THINGS' but also, I kinda can only eat these three things because allergies af. But during my sick? Nope, I ate all the things.

Did I gain a few pounds back in this past month? Sure. Sure I did. Am I freaking out about it? Nope. I know that weight goes up and down, and that I have the means of getting back on my path of healthier.

Except now the sick is gone, and I've still yet to work out again. I have a fully functional home gym and I only go in there at night time because it's also the cat's bedroom and I tuck her in every night. I don't play with the weights or the machines, I just get her treats, change her pooptray, and tuck her in.

I'm not going to beat myself up over this, but I do have to regain my motivation.

And right now, my motivation is crud. I'm getting it back slowly, and that's mostly because I can feel how poorly my body is right now. My stomach is always bloated because I'm eating things my body doesn't know how to properly digest. That's causing my hernia to friggin HURT. I also have zero energy. Like, I wake up ready to take a nap. I've tried just sleeping longer, but my legs are killing me so much that I have to be upright and in my leg-pretzel position to make them stop. Even my bathroom changes are super noticeable and not ok.

Eating well and exercising = me feeling better. Why in the world is that not motivation enough?

Sometimes, I can blame it on my video games. I get so engrossed in a game that if I have a free half hour or hour before work, I'd much rather play a video game than use that time to exercise, but I can't even claim that right now since I'm not engrained in any of the three games I'm playing (Conan Exiles, Astroneer, and Icarus, if you're curious). So I spend most of my mornings just doom scrolling the web or playing Microsoft card games which is very whatever.

It's like I have the motivation to have motivation, but I don't have the actual motivation.

I have to get out of that. I literally feel like buttschmear right now and I absolutely KNOW that I'd feel better if I did better. I know it, but I'm not making any moves to fix it.

I will be better.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

About to get a medical alert service dog

Almost a year ago, I had a heart attack. I'm "too young" for all that, but apparently my heart doesn't care.

In the past few years, I've also had two strokes. I currently have an issue caused by long-COVID which causes my heart rate to rest at about 120 to 160. I also have high blood pressure. I take meds to help with this, but it's imperative that I notice when things are going too high to be able to course-correct. My apple watch can tell me if my heartrate is too high for over 10 minutes, which is great, but I sure would love to know that it's happening before it gets that high for that long. And Apple watch doesn't tell me jack all about my blood pressure. I usually don't know it's crept up to be too high until I can feel my pulse literally making my head bop.

My doc recommended a cardiac alert service dog who could alert me to these issues before they get too bad.

Have you ever looked into getting a service dog? I hadn't. Until I did (duh). They can cost about $30,000 if you pay for it, and if you get on a list for a free service dog, it can take a few years before you get one.

Honestly, I didn't want to get on a free list because there are people with way rougher medical stuff than me who would be able to use that spot much more. Guilt. I don't want to go on one of those lists for guilt.

So, $30,000 OR, or I just train it myself.

The ADA states that a medical service dog can be trained by their handler/borked owner who needs a service dog, so that's what I'm going to do. I will get a puppy or a very young bestgoodboi™ and do my own obedience training, socialization training, and alert training, and it is daunting af, friends!

And since this current blog is just a brain dump kinda diary, I'm going to start a separate blog for just the doggo stuff. If you're interested in watching the journey, come check out Cardio Canine!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

I'm slipping...

I feel it. I'm slipping again.

It started with me not drinking as much water as usual. I went from 80 to 90 oz of water a day to maybe 20. Some days, not even that much. The next slide was weighing myself every morning. That kinda progressed to weighing in once a week. I know, I know, they say not to weigh yourself every day, but it's not just the weight I'm tracking; my scale tells me things like hydration, protein, etc. This basically gives me a morning report of how I did the day before. Then I stopped tracking my food every time I ate; this one slipped to me not tracking food for like a week at a time.

And 2 weeks ago yesterday was the first time I ate something NOT ok on my dietary change. I went away for the weekend and it was really hard to find things that just met my diet, so I was like "Heck it". I had been eating perfectly for 6 months, it was ok to slip. And I've done it 4 times since that weekend.

I've missed time at the gym; all for good reason, but I haven't tried to do anything else to make up for the missing movements. That is, I didn't do any workouts at home or do cardio or anything.

I'm just slipping. I don't want to. I really REALLY don't, but I am just kinda... stuck.

Yesterday, my new water bottle arrived. It's one of those that reminds you to drink and keeps track of how much you drink. I have a session at the gym with Jess, and I want to talk to her about the whole thing to get some insight, advise, and accountability from her.

And I'm looking at a different food tracking site. I fell out of love with MyNetDiary for some reason, though I can't recall why.

It didn't help that I was laid off, with 30% of my company, 2 weeks ago. I've already got another job (a higher paying job, even), but still...

I have to fix this.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Today's comparison numbers

Where I was vs. Where I am; May 8th to June 25th to July 10th

Weight in Pounds: 193.0 > 173.2 (-19.8) > 169.0 (-24.0)

BMI: 35.5 > 31.9 (-3.6) > 31.1 (-4.4)

Body Fat: 45.6% > 40.1% (-5.5%) > 38.8% (-6.8%)

Subcutaneous Fat: 39.5% > 35.1% (-4.4%) > 34.0% (-5.5%)

Visceral Fat: 17.0% > 14.0% (-3%) > 13.0 (-4%)

Skeletal Muscle: 31.7% > 34.9% (+3.2%) > 35.6% (+3.9%)

[bigheckinbraindrain]

These numbers, tho

So we've talked about my start on 5/8; I changed my diet, started working out with my trainer, made a big effort to really stick to it this time.

Where I was vs. Where I am; May 8th to June 25th

Weight: 193.0 > 173.2 = Loss of 19.8 lbs

BMI: 35.5 > 31.9 = Loss of 3.6

Body Fat: 45.6% > 40.1% = Loss of 5.5%

Subcutaneous Fat: 39.5% > 35.1% = Loss of 4.4%

Visceral Fat: 17.0% > 14.0% = Loss of 3%

Skeletal Muscle: 31.7% > 34.9% = Gain of 3.2%

Three days a week, I use the treadmill for about 30 minutes (speed ranging from 2.5 to 2.9). I then see my trainer and do 3 to 5 supersets. Mondays are Arm days, Wednesdays are Leg days, and Fridays are Full Body days.

I have not eaten things outside of my diet very much. I accidentally had about 1 tablespoon of tomatoes the other day (it was in my guac), and I ordered chicken wings one day and it was a bit breaded. I only ate 3 of the wings and it was gross, so I stopped. Otherwise, I'm killing it with my diet.

Where I know I can improve is my working out. 3 days a week is not quite enough, especially considering I only do half an hour of walking and half an hour of weights (with setup, walking from one area to another, and rest periods in there). My trainer is going to write me up a plan for my days when I'm not with her this week. That'll help me get into the gym and kick some ass even better.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Putting the work in

I don't remember if I posted about working with my doctor to come up with a GOOD health plan or not, so I'm going to cliff-notes it now.

I went to the doc and started on a new nutrition plan on May 8th. That's 36 days ago. I had started seeing my favorite trainer way back in... Jan? Feb? But nothing crazy. I was kinda going through the motions just to get back to it. Since May 8th, I have been deadass serious.

So on the 8th, my entire diet changed. I'm on something akin to Paleo, but more restrictive. Basically, I can eat all the white meat chicken I want, some veggies, and a few fruits. My drinks are ONLY water with the exception of a protein mix (and only one; SunWarrior). I can't eat any dairy, no nightshades (tomatoes and the like), most fruits are off limits (apples, strawberries, and most other berries are ok), some nuts, and all the leafy greens a girl could want.

I rotate between three meals more often than not (like, 95% of my meals are one of these three).

My favorite is a bowl with chopped kale and cauliflower base topped with strawberries, broccoli, blackened chicken, sunflower seeds, avocado, and balsamic vinaigrette.

I also do chicken breast with a small fruit salad on the side

And my other dish is 2 chicken breasts with zucchini.

Coming from a girl who ate things like 4 chicken tenders with mac n cheese and fries pretty regularly, this is a massive change. I also was seriously non-active. I have a desk job and work from home. My step count was absolutely laughable.

This past month+a few days have been entirely different.

On my gym days (3x a week with the trainer), I get up between 4:30 and 5, do my morning stuff for about half an hour and then head out the door with my SunWarrior shake. I have a 30 minute drive to the gym, and do a half hour on the treadmill to warm up before seeing Jess (the trainer), and then I do my workout with her and drive a half hour back home. Shower, change clothes, and plop my ass in front of the computer to start work.

On my non-gym days, I sometimes hop on my home treadmill or play beat saber or Supernatural on my Oculus for some cardio, and then in front of the computer.

I could be so much better; I could go to the gym more often, I could Oculus much more frequently, but it's still a huge change. I've lost about 16 pounds this month, and good lort do I feel better!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Today, something amazing happened

So, after Covid, I've had serious heart conditions. I take heart medication 3 times a day to keep my heart rate down. Without the medication, my resting heart rate is 150. Now we know I'm not a fit girl (yet), but 150 is way WAY too high, especially for a resting number. My medication keeps it below 100.

Before I started going back to the gym, my on medication resting heart rate was in the mid to upper 80s. It'd get down in the 70s occasionally when I was sleeping.

This morning, when I woke up, I had a heart rate notification on my Apple watch. I opened the app to learn it was a LOW heart rate notification! I've had one of those in the entire time I've had an Apple watch, and it was around the time I had my heart attack (just after, on all the meds, in the hospital).

I had to contemplate that for a moment. How did it dip so low? Am I sick again? Am I prepping for another heart attack? Or... hear me out, is my diet so drastically different since I started (2 weeks ago) that it could be that my food was triggering my heart rate?

You can call me all the names here, I know it was bad, but I knew I am allergic to Soy, Peanuts, Palm, Pine, Wheat, and Rye. I did very little to avoid them. I mean, I wouldn't eat soy sauce or something like that, but breaded chicken fingers? Yep. Food prepared with soy? Yep. And I know those foods make my face itchy and the doctor said it causes inflammatory responses inside my body. When I consume those things, my body tries to defend itself (myself?) against them and it can cause a cascade of things to happen. I never took a lot of stock in that even though I knew I should.

So with this new way of eating, I get zero of those things. Literally zero. And seriously, in 2 weeks, my face is thinner, my stomach has come down, I feel much better, and... and this heart rate thing.

Sure it could be something entirely different, but I work out now multiple days a week. I'm sure to have cardio as well as strength training. I eat REALLY well. I'm thinking that it really could be because of this that I had to not take my heart meds today.

Because I couldn't imagine what my heart rate would be at if it's this low without medications and I took pills to make it lower.

So... yeah. This is pretty nutsbananas!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Here we go again... again

I have this tendency to get really, really into fitness. I love the gym, I love to sweat (when working out, not when just walking outside... stupid Florida), I love the way my body feels when I've got a regime.

And then, I love to eat bad for me foods. And I don't mean they have lots of calories (which they usually do) or that they contain unhealthy ingredients (which they usually do, too)... I mean things I am allergic to or that my body can not process. I am allergic to wheat, rye, peanuts, pine, and palm. I have had my gallbladder removed. I have specific things that my body just doesn't handle properly. But I still eat the stuff.

And eating the stuff makes me lose stamina and energy in general. And then I stop working out regularly. And then I stop working out at all. And months pass before I get back to it. Sometimes as much as a year!

I'm getting back to my gym ways right now. Last Wednesday, I went to my nutritionist doctor and said I needed help. I explained that I can barely stay awake for a full day (not ideal when you work 8 hours a day) and that I just don't have energy to work out. Between that and my dietary issues, they put me on a very specific diet and medication to help.

As of this morning, I am down 5 pounds and am really pushing with my personal trainer. I also did the MudGirl run this weekend (though I walked it, and felt like I was dying!)

Cross your fingers for me. I really need this to stick!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Once-a-Month Meals

I recently found a website called Once a Month Meals (OaMM). The idea behind it is that they have many MANY recipes that you can prep ahead of time and freeze for later. You can create a menu plan, add up to 15 recipes from their site to your menu plan, and then tell the system how many servings you want each meal to be and how many make-ahead meals of each recipe you want, and it guides you through it.

Yesterday was my first attempt at this. I picked 15 meals that looked/sounded like they'd be really good. I made my shopping list (they allow you to download an exact shopping list, but I wanted to write it out to combine a few things, like there would be an entry for Chicken breast and another for chicken thighs, but I only eat breast, another entry was for diced tomatoes and one for diced tomatoes with chilis that I combined together). And when I got home from the store, I started in.

As I understood it, the basic steps for doing a meal plan session are to

Make your meal plan from the available recipes

Print out a shopping list (the website creates this)

Shop for the items on the list

Print out the prep-day sheet

Make all the recipes

Freeze

My experience of last night's endeavor was that it sucked. Hard. The recipes were good and the prep wasn't really that bad, but there are some things I could have done differently that would have made a huge difference.

I learned a lot in my first go-round. Some things I realized part-way through, some I realized once I was cleaning up my disaster of a kitchen at the end.

My tips for my next round will be:

PAY ATTENTION TO PREP TIMES ON THE RECIPE CARDS

Make my meal plan

Shop at a warehouse grocery store like Sam's, Costco, or BJ's because bulk, man

Pre-prepare my cooking by figuring out how much hamburger meat I need to have "cooked" for a recipe, chopped onions, etc. Do all that the night before

Use these little cups to measure out my spices for all recipes beforehand

Figure out what I'm going to eat for the next 2 or 3 days to keep in the fridge instead of freezing.

Make up my Ziploc bags and bowls with their labels

Group similar recipes together (like my Santa-Fe chicken and my taco pasta) because I can reuse some of those mixing bowls without having to wash and dry them in between when a rinse would do just fine

WEAR MY GOOD SNEAKERS FOR ARCH SUPPORT because I didn't last night, and my feet were dead weight about 5 recipes in

Download an audiobook to listen to while I'm prepping. Or a podcast. Or something.

Make sure I do my flash-freeze recipes in a logical order. Somehow, all my flash-freeze ones were near the end. Since I needed freezer room to store the pans before packaging the item, I couldn't do them in succession. Honestly, I'll probably ensure I only do 2 or 3 flash-freeze recipes per prep day, and do one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end. Or just start and end.

Make an "eat" calendar. I will make a little post-it note and pre-write each individual meal on one note, then add it to my calendar (so I can move them around if I want to). I could also use calendar software to do this, but I like the tactile feeling of placing and moving stickies. I'm a very techy person but this is one thing I do like doing with paper.

Get 11 inches-wide plastic storage bins. I can freeze all my bags lying down, flat, and then put them into these storage bins in order of when I'm going to eat them

[bigheckinbraindrain]

MyNetDiary Health Tracker

Y'all, I am floored by this tracker! I literally just paid for a lifetime membership of Lose It and dgaf, I still switched over to MND

THE FREAKIN REPORTING AND INSIGHTS!!! OMG!!! And it's pretty, and easy to use, and has an excellent food db!!! Like WHOA.

So if you've been reading along my "Find my Tracker" journey over the past few weeks, please know that my adventures/hunt is well over.

As a note, if you try out MND and like it, you can get a discount by buying gift cards instead of just paying for the app. They tell you how to do this on their site.

Annually, the regular cost is $60. If you buy two year's of gift cards, that total is $72. That comes out to $36 a year. That's what I did. I was going to use it for 2 year's worth of membership, but my daughter was interested in using MND too, so I gave her one of the gc numbers to use. So she has a year and I have a year for $12 more than it would have cost me for just my membership.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

WHOA, New Contender!!!

So I was looking for promo codes for MFP because I was pretty sure it won out in the quest for food tracking apps.

And while searching for the code, someone posted on Reddit (of course) that they were in the same search and decided to try other apps (samsies). They mentioned My Net Diary which I used a really long time ago. It was as basic as Lose It on the web, and I honestly didn't even consider it when doing this round. The last time I logged in this app was 2 years ago, and even then I was just kinda going through motions to see if I liked it.

But now?! Holy CRAP has it changed!

Y'all, I'm sold! The charting, entries, food db, tips, and insights are amazing!

I'm done looking. I'mma fork over the money for this, I just know it. I'll look to see if they do trials first, but I'm pretty sure this is my new and only app!

[bigheckinbraindrain]

MFP vs CM

I have officially decided to drop Chronometer and Lose It.

I dropped Chronometer because while it does offer a lot of macro insights, I don't use them. And I frequently find food that is either a different nutritional value than listed on the package or another app, if I find that food at all. It's lovely to view, but it's just not overly helpful.

I dropped Lose It because while it does have a pretty good database, it is just not visually appealing on the web (the phone app is fine), and it doubles up entries. I just didn't see enough good features to make me love it.

I tried out FatSecret. I used to use it a million years ago (last time I logged an entry was January of 2022, so almost 2 years ago). It's... ok, at best. But there are no reports and it's kinda clunky. I decided to just drop it before I tried to get too committed. I mean, zero reports or insights just can't compare to the other sites I'm working with who do have them.

So now we're at My Fitness Pal and Carb Manager.

My only complaint with CM is that I wish it let me focus on calories instead of carbs. The only time I care about carbs is when it's from an allergen. But not all carbs are, so this focus just doesn't do anything for me. Outside of that, though, it's awesome.

MFP irritates me that you have to pay to use most any good feature and you can try it for free but only by putting in your cc info. I feel like they are making their site about a money-grab. I don't know why that irritates me but... here we go! I might use the free trial until black friday, see if they have a sale.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Drop two, picked up 'nuther

Yesterday, after not being able to find a meal once again, I dropped Chronometer. I like how much info it gives about micronutrients, but I'm over not being able to find foods.

I also dropped Lose It. I hate that it takes in double entries. I probably shouldn't... I mean once I decide on an app it won't double up anymore. And the phone app is pretty dope. But the web app is crappy.

And in a really weird turn of events, I picked MyFitnessPal back up. Unpaid account, but worth at least tossing into the mix I guess.

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Food logging apps

As of yesterday, I have been using all 3 food logging apps for 2 full weeks. I have logged each thing I ate as best I can (all food has been logged, but sometimes the app doesn't have exactly what I ate so I do as best I can; like one didn't have Little Greek Fries, so I found other fries that were similar in calorie count).

The overall, I think Lose It is my favorite. I have a lot of 🚫items on it, but the pros outweigh the cons (haha, outweigh). I don't want to have to keep up with each of them daily, but each one has something much better than the others do. With Lose It, it feels like the most complete and useful. With CarbManager, it's food logging is the most user-friendly and the daily page is just more robust and useful. With Chronometer, the breakdowns of macros is way better.

Here's where I am with each of them:

Lose It - Overall there are a lot of 🚫 on this list, but it's not my least favorite.

Food Logging

🚫Visually, it's not appealing. At least on the computer. I actually like it's phone app but the computer app just isn't very nice.

🚫It ingests from Apple Health which is ok, except that because I enter stuff on LI, and then the same stuff on the other apps, I have to go back and find duplicates all the time. This is, I'm sure, an easy setting to fix and it won't matter when I've dropped to just using one app.

✅It seems to have most of my food

🚫While it has most of the food, it doesn't show the brand on the diary page, which I weirdly hate

🚫Zero hotkeys or shortcut buttons/clicks. I also hate that

🚫In the meal search box, if you start typing, it can auto-hover on something and stops letting you type. It's a pain

Reporting and Insights

I really like the Patterns insight. It shows me "On days you eat (...) you tend to keep you (...) lower/higher" which is super helpful already, but I'm sure it will be much more so after I've used the app for a long time

The Food Insights (where it shows what items contributed to the highest calories/sodium/fat/etc) is pretty cool, but it doesn't let you pick the date range so ... meh

Budget shows the days you were over/under on your calories. That's kinda nice but I almost never look at it. It doesn't really lend to any changes in behavior so far

Nutrition insight is useless, because there is an "Unknown" slice in the pie. And it doesn't tell you what contributed to it. How can I take stock in anything it's showing on that chart when there is such a large portion that is unknown?

The weekly summary is kinda nice, I do like this one

The weight chart is pretty clear and easy to see my trends.

CarbManager - Overall, this has the most ✅ marks, but I just don't know that it's my favorite. I think this is 100% because it's focused on carbs and that's not my goal. I feel if they were to let you choose which macro is your focus and display accordingly, this would be my favorite by a lot.

Food Logging

✅Visually, this is my favorite. It's clean and crisp, both on the computer as well as on my phone

🚫It's focus is on Carbs (I mean, it IS called CarbManager) and I don't focus on Carbs. I really really wish it would let you decide to do Carbs OR Calories as your focus.

✅It has most of the foods I'm looking for

✅It tells you the name of the brand/restaurant and even shows pictures

✅It's super easy to copy from one day or meal to another, which is awesome

✅I actually just did a recent call with them for market research. I love knowing that they're that interested in their user base and take time (and spend money) to find out user's preferences and ease of use. They did a portion that was touch-point/pain-point and I LOVE that!

🤔There are a ton of recipes on the site (which is awesome) but they are all carb-focused (again, it's right there in the name) which is not my goal. So yay recipes, boo they are carb-focused. HOWEVER, because I'm not supposed to be eating wheat and select other grains, this is actually pretty good. I'm not Keto, but I share a lot of the same needs.

🚫Your weight isn't listed on your diary page. I want to see all the info I care about in one place

Reporting and Insights

If we're being honest, the reports section is shit. I get way more useful information looking at the day-to-day charts, because the reporting section is 100% lacking

Chronometer - I really like this one, except the lack of items in the database. I think if I had no issue looking stuff up, I'd absolutely love this app. I know that if I used this long enough, and I entered in everything that it didn't have in the db whenever I found something missing, eventually it would even out and I could find everything even if it was because I entered it. But I just don't have that kind of patience or desire to put in the extra work for an app I'm paying for.

Food Logging

✅Visually, this is almost an exact mix between the other two.

🚫🚫I find a lot of the food I'm looking for just isn't here. I have to frequently find "close enough" type foods, which means that the macro summaries that I like so much aren't really accurate.

✅It's very easy to drag and drop, rearrange stuff, etc. That's really nice

🤔I always talk about how much I love the nutrient targets, but if we're being honest, I rarely look at them. It seems the only time I care about this level of depth is when I get bloodwork done and I want to see what contributed to a specific thing (like sodium).

Reporting and Insights

The nutrition report for daily averages is pretty dope. I really like this one for retrospective

[bigheckinbraindrain]

She Who Is Tired, and the Negative Thoughts That Keep Her That Way...

I am just. so. tired. I feel like it just never stops, I run from one fire to the next never getting to put any out. And just when I think I have something down to embers, it blazes up again.

I feel like I run from one crisis straight into the next and I am exhausted.

And today I got feedback that I didn't want to ever receive. It was hard to hear. It's always hard to hear when you put so much effort in and you're not doing well enough.

My first instinct is to give 'reasons'. I went instantly on the defense. But I held my tongue and did not respond because I knew that my reply would be "I did this because person x did that".

That's not the right way to respond. I knew it, and it was hard to continue listening objectively while fighting that reaction.

I kept repeating some variation of "you're not in trouble, you're being offered insight on ways to improve" to myself. I kept trying to remind myself that I was being given an opportunity to be better. But man, my mind just kept going back to the "I put my heart and soul into this" mindset.

I'm choosing to not feel that way. I'm choosing now, right now, that my takeaway from that is that I was putting my efforts into chasing down these fires when there was an easier way to manage them. I'm not wrong for putting 100% in, I was mistakenly putting my 100% in incorrectly.

I will listen to this feedback and I will use it to help me change what I do with my efforts. I was given feedback not to reprimand me for a poorly done job... I was given that feedback to help me learn to direct my methods to a better means of putting out those fires.

Giving effort is good. Giving the effort correctly is better.

I have learned a valuable lesson, and I won't let my negative thinking take that away from me. I will take it at face value and say to myself 'This person cares enough to provide an outside perspective. They not only show me areas where I can improve, they offered me real examples and solutions to help me grow.'

I will keep that mentality, but damn today sucked.

And I am tired of fires.