I am seriously confused on how to use this website and need it desperately. I have no idea what I'm consuming a day except for what I eat and how much it weighs!

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!! :confused2:

Hi Yvonne!

Once you are logged in, go to My Plate. You should be on a screen that gives you a list of what you ate. (Blank, obviously if you haven't added anything.)

Definitely make use of the FAQ and HELP sections where you can find them. In addition, here is a basic run through:

CALORIE GOALS:

For best results, fill in the information (there is a link above the food area for you to click and fill in your height, weight, and calorie goals).

FOOD:

There is a search box that you can use to locate foods you eat. When you do the search, be sort of vague. I suggest this, "Nectar Protein," instead of "Nectar Cappuccino Protein Drink," because you only need a few words for the site to give you lots of options.

Find the items you want and click on it. You will see a button that says, "I ATE THIS." When you click on it, it will ask you when you ate it. Choose the best option for you, and it will add it to your "plate."

It then takes you to your plate where you indicate how much you ate and when (what time of day).

FITNESS:

Under the food list you enter, there is a link for you to click and choose fitness. Keep in mind you cannot do this until you choose your calorie goals (see first step).

Go through the lists, find what you did that day, tell the site how many minutes, and hit the button to enter/update. The site will calculate approximate calorie burn based on your height/weight information.

I'm like you, I find the daily plate very confusing. Just can't seem to get the hang of it. Most people seem to like it best, but you might try fitday.com also.

Fitday.com was OK, but the search was hard to use and not very intuitive, it didn't separate what you ate at each meal, and I had to add to many things myself. I even paid to download the software. The software was much, much better than the online version, but I want something more accessible. Since the online and the software didn't sync up, I felt it was a waste.

I switched to Daily Plate (through LiveStrong.com) and feel like I can see everything laid out much better.

Hey Felicia, Thank you soooo much- I have been on that sight all day and finally have it down pat! I entered 2 weeks worth of food logs that I've been keeping in a book... This is much better once you learn your way around!

You have been extremely helpful...

My pleasure! Glad I could help!

I had bookmarked the site many weeks ago after having heard about it here on LBT. I totally forgot about it til I read this thread the other day.

Got on Mon and logged everything in for the day. I went over but only by 49 calories and I hadn't been able to plan for the day so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Then Tues, logged everything in and actually was under by a couple hundred calories, then logged in a little exercise that I was able to get in and it put me at over 500 calories UNDER for the day! Holy Smokes!!!

I'm glad I started logging. I'm supposed to keep track of what I'm doing by writing it all down for a class I'm taking for pre-op requirements for insurance. (We don't have to turn it in, we just need to keep track.) I'm also supposed to lose 10% before surgery. I hate writing everything down b/c all I do is guess about what anything adds up to or means. This way all I have to do is find it and it's all added up for me and I can conduct the day accordingly.

I inputed that I wanted to lose a pound a week and I'm hoping this really helps. I think it's already helping by just making me more accountable and making me think twice about what I'm about to put in my mouth.

One thing I haven't found on the site is a recipe builder of sorts. For my turkey sandwich today, I just did each ingredient separately. That took awhile. I have a recipe for a cream cheese spread that I want to try and I don't even want to make it yet b/c I have NO idea how to calculate that one! I'll have to keep searching to see if I can find it.

But I do like it and am happy this thread got me going with it! Thanks!!

On Daily Plate, you would use the Create a Meal feature.

On my screen, it's on the right side of the page. It lets you put the stuff together into a package called a "meal" and then you can choose that meal in the future in stead of each item individually.

Thanks! I'll check it out. I was looking for the word "recipe" so totally didn't see that! I thought it was more if you eat the same thing every morning for Breakfast then you just make the meal. I wasn't thinking about the recipe part of that! Didn't know it did both! DUH!!

Yeah, they should have named it something else, IMHO. I use it for both common meals and my own recipes.

I found another link for you, too.

You can also add a new food to the database. Click on New Item - LIVESTRONG.COM

Cool! Thanks!

I'm really liking this. It takes time but it's making me pay attention and think about what I'm doing.

It also helps to track as I go through the day (if possible) so I can then plan my dinner and try to stay within my calories.

I don't know about logging my "exercise" though. It's giving me extra calories that I can eat and I feel fairly sedentary, though I have a 2 yr old and we're playing or I'm walking from one end of the house to the other just to get Water and we have stairs to walk up and down from the driveway to the front door of the house but it doesn't FEEL like exercise. Just a little movement here and there. So it doesn't feel right logging it and getting extra calories. Have to ponder this one.

Any thoughts?

The extra calories is for maintaining the goal you have set in the system.

I admit, I ignore the calculation of exercise calories subtracted from food calories. I understand why it does it, it's calculating calories to keep to the goal so if you were trying to maintain (or even gain; blasphemy, I know), you could use it to make up the difference.

Second, I don't use DP to calculate my everyday activities (showering, walking around as part of my daily need to move around the office or shopping, etc.). I only track activities specific to working out. I understand that your body burns calories with the slightest activities (sleeping for 83 minutes will burn off my Soup for lunch)... but I don't want to get hung up on data that, IMHO, doesn't really count.

So, I track everything I eat, but only the exercise I do for fitness reasons.

I agree Felicia. I have noticed that a lot of people on there log every little thing, like you said. I'm sorry, but I am not going to enter showering, sleeping, watching TV, doing the dishes, etc. If I do really, really heavy duty cleaning to where I work up a major sweat, then I do enter that. Otherwise, I only enter true exercise like going to the gym.

One of the things I like about the daily plate gold is their site for people who have smartphones. I have a blackberry and love that I can go to their wap site and have very simple quick and easy access to everything. That is why I chose it over fitday and others.

One of the things I like about the daily plate gold is their site ...

I just opened an account with Daily Plate after reading this thread, and I just came back to ask about the Gold account.

Have most of you upgraded to Gold, and if you have, do you think it's worth it? (thanks)

Edited July 2, 200818 yr by kiz

I think it is worth it. I like having my meals be broken down in to distinct groups. And, I like having the access from my blackberry.

Did you sign up via PayPal? If so, watch your account closely. They have been having known problems with PayPal. I have paid for gold and had paypal cancel my daily plate subscription 4 times for no apparent reason. In fact, I had to contact the Daily Plate support just today about the problem again. They have now given me two additional months to make up for the problems.

Thanks for your reply, Susan. I just signed up for the free service, but I saw that you can upgrade to Gold for a fee, while the entry level service is free. I'll play with it on free for awhile, but I'll probably upgrade eventually. It's really a neat site. Thanks for the heads-up about PayPal too.