Health: Starting with myfitnesspal

I was doing well earlier this year. I really was! While I wasn't on any strict diets, I was working out regularly, having found love in Zumba. Then came a two-week trip to New York in June with my son to visit my family, and I just could find time to keep working out. (Rather, I kept finding excuses NOT to work out.)

After returning home from our trip, I just couldn't get back on the wagon. With the daily craziness that goes with rearing my son, plus other personal issues I was (am?) going through, the excuses just kept coming. I'm too tired. It's boring. My son's schedule is just not cooperating. I don't want to.

It's now almost September, and I've just been feeling BLAH. I know how much better I feel, inside and out, when I'm working out regularly. I don't even have that much weigh to lose, but I just need more help with keeping myself motivated to keep going. I was doing a lot of tracking on SparkPeople — and I love how they offer free apps for the iPhone and iPad — but I felt like I needed something new.

Enter myfitnesspal. Yes, it's another web site that lets you track your diet and exercise. What I think drew me into signing up was their iPhone app. What's different about theirs is that it has a built-in bar code scanner — when I ate my favorite low-calorie snack the other night, a pack of roasted seaweed from Trader Joe's, I was shocked that all its info came up when I scanned the bar code. Honestly, the ease of letting me do that with a specific package of food that's not available nation-wide, totally sold me. I almost shop exclusively at Trader Joe's, so being able to scan their items is a definite plus.

Oh, and yes, their service and apps are free! And they have mobile apps for Android, Blackberry, and Windows smart phones as well.

Their service also has some social networking features, where you can connect with friends who are also on there and share feeds & updates. This is also supposed to help motivate you to stay on track, but since I only have one friend on there at this time, I'm not quite getting the advantage of the features just yet.

Now that I'm tracking my food again, it's also time to put my sneakers back on. It's still difficult for me to get to my favorite Zumba class, but I still have the Wii version (which nearly killed me the other day because I've been so out of it). I also managed to get back on the elliptical machine at the gym today while my son took a tumbling class. I do hope to make the Zumba class tomorrow night, but if not, I plan on firing up the Wii at home.

So if you're also looking for an online diet and exercise tracker with a good mobile device companion, check out myfitnesspal. (And feel free to add me as a friend! My username is phoofy.) Also check them out on Twitter and Facebook.