# October's #challenge - Tracking food ## Introduction This marks the first month since I began undertaking monthly challenges. For this month, I decided to track all the food I consumed, focusing on as many nutrients as possible. For a long time, I've admired bodybuilders and others who are disciplined in tracking their nutritional intake. I hesitated to follow suit, thinking, "This will be time-consuming, and I don't want to feel enslaved by calculations." I initially thought they employed complex scales with multiple modes for different types of food and then logged the data either manually or in a spreadsheet. I'm not a fan of physical notes, sheets, or notebooks because I prefer to search, analyze, and visualize my data. I was sure that there must be a more efficient way to track my food intake. I wasn't wrong. For this endeavor, I chose an app called [Dine4Fit](https://www.dine4fit.com/), developed by a Czech company. I found it particularly useful for foods available in the Czech Republic, but it also worked for a wide variety of foods from Germany and Austria. ## Dine4Fit #apps This app serves as a companion to https://www.kaloricketabulky.cz — a web version that offers a less convenient method for recording nutritional data. ![[6C3289BB-EE4E-4520-A319-58F6B8450C63_1_102_o.jpeg|App homescreen|400]] The app has a wealth of features, but if I were to rank them in order of importance to me, they would be: 1. The ability to scan food barcodes and automatically calculate my nutritional intake based on weight or, in the case of liquids, volume. Some items come in multiple versions — see image below 2. The option to add my own food items, both ingredients and prepared dishes 3. No vendor lock-in - Integration with Apple Health for regular data updates - The capability to export data in both XLS and PDF formats (although it's limited to exporting one day at a time, this can be easily scripted) ![[IMG_5881.png|Example menu for adding Pilsner Urquell beer|400]] ![[846BACDD-B5C9-405F-9207-56D90F1485A4_1_102_o.jpeg|Apple Health Nutrition data gets automatically updated by Dine4Fit - part 1|400]] ![[195838F2-D263-4CBC-A607-BFDF3E0B26B4_1_102_o.jpeg|Apple Health Nutrition data gets automatically updated by Dine4Fit - part 2|400]] Initially, I found it bothersome to remember to log my food after each meal. I was fairly consistent for the first two weeks but grew slightly irritated by the need to log every single time. So, I transitioned to logging my meals in "batches." While I continued to log every item, the timestamp didn't always align with the actual time I ate. I found this approach to work the best for me. Sometimes I couldn't weigh my food, such as when dining in a restaurant. In these instances, I would search the app's repository for the most similar meal and either make an educated guess or use weight data from the restaurant's menu. ## Conclusion - [+] Challenge completed - I will keep doing it as it motivates me eat less sugar and fat