I talked to a lady (Stacy) at work yesterday about the Flat Belly Diet. She asked for a link to their website, then told me about the about.com calorie count website. It is an amazing site. The purpose of the site is host a location where people can track the quality and quantity of their caloric intake. The thing I like the most about it, is that it is so amazingly easy to use. I will use yesterday as an example. For breakfast, I had a packet of Quaker Oatmeal with a 4 oz. container of blueberry yogurt and 1/4 cup of shelled walnuts. Many of the brand names and their available servings are in the system. When I entered that information into the system, the following information was recorded:

Breakfast Grade Grams Cals
Quaker, Oatmeal, Instant, Maple And Brown Sugar – Prepared With Water B+ 55 157
Yogurt, Fruit, Low Fat, 9 Grams Protein Per 8 Ounce B+ 123 122
Shelled Walnuts B- 30 200
Total Calories Consumed 478
Exercise Mins Cals
Walking – 3.5 Mph, Level, Brisk, Firm Surface, Walking for Exercise 25 141
Total Calories Burned 141

When I signed up for an account, I entered a bunch of information about my body type, goals, age, etc. The system provides a mechanism to track just about any kind of exercise you can imagine along with how many calories they consume. Each day, as food, weight, and exercise are entered into the system, a grade is given (A-F) for the quality of nutrition, a graph is created to show both actual weight and the trend of the weight loss, and a complete record of all the food and exercise are kept. Kelly and I are doing the Flat Belly Diet that puts emphasis on mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA’s). The system allows us to track our MUFA’s by tagging those foods that contain them. The system is very new to us right now, but it is making us think about what we are eating. It seems to be especially good at identifying problem areas that need work and opportunities for improvement. In my case, I need to back off a bunch in my evening eating (my problem area) and take two walks a day instead of one (my opportunity for improvement).

At any rate, this web site is definitely worth a look for anyone interested in losing or managing weight.

Update:  A special note to Troy and Youngin.  Lorena saw this post and decided she was going to try to make them on Saturday.  To say the least, it has NOT been helpful to the successful of my diet.  Also, “Baby in the Oven” was a wildly misleading title.