Do you know how many calories you eat a day?  Do you regularly keep track of them?  And if so, how?  On paper, in your head, maybe an excel spreadsheet?  Well, my Useful Website of the Week, caloriecount.about.com, is a free online calorie counting tool and is very helpful in keeping track of those numbers.  Given my recent realization that I wasn’t eating enough calories, I am definitely finding this to be a handy resource.

Something that I am finding invaluable, is their calorie counter database.  It allows you to search for any food you have eaten, find the calorie count, and add it to your meal counter.  The meal counter then keeps track of all the nutritional information of the food that you have eaten that day.  One really cool thing is that it takes the guesswork out of eating meals out.  You can search for wherever you may have had dinner, and more often than not, they have the restaurant and meal in the database.  That’s because it is the website’s users that input the menu information and the website staff crunches the numbers to let you know the actual nutritional info.  Handy, eh?

When you create an account, it allows you to keep track of all your meals, as well as food suggestions (taking what you eat and finding healthier, lower calorie versions of it), recipes, and your exercise.  If you are interested in finding your target caloric intake, simply create your diet profile and learn about your eating habits and influences in the process. 

I am utilizing these tools to help improve my eating habits and learn more about where my nutrition is lacking.  It is also helping me stay motivated to eat right and try new things.  I hope you find this site as useful as I am!