Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Self Magazine has an online service that helps you track your caloric intake and exercise. It’s free for their subscribers.

• Self Diet Club

It’s pretty cool, actually.

They have a huge list of foods to search from including name brand processed foods and fast food from restaurants. The same is true for exercise. They have choices of everything from cleaning the house to running 10 minute miles.

I especially like the meal planner. You tell it the number of calories that you want to eat every day and it breaks it down into portions of protein, dairy, fruits and grains for you to eat each meal, including suggestions. Once you choose your selections, you can print up your day and even create a shopping list.

After you’ve maintained your food journal for a while, the Self Diet program can analyze your diet habits and tell you where you can optimize things. They shoot for a healthy balance of protein, carbohydrates and fat, so they will analyze what you eat and tell you how your percentages rack up against the recommendations.

This service is free with a subscription to SELF Magazine. For twelve bucks a year, you get the online service AND the magazine. That’s a lot cheaper than the Weight Watchers Online service (not to mention MyFoodPhone) and just as helpful.