Tag: #Fitbit

Tracking Food with Cronometer

September 21, 2023 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

I wrote about tracking food in the very early days of the Becoming Elli website. I wrote a blogpost entitled Counting Calories or Eat Less and Move More. At that time, I was using SparkPeople for tracking my food. I stuck with that app because I had a large body of data in it. I had created recipes and lots of favorites. It was easy to use. Five years later, I’m now tracking food with Cronometer.

Unfortunately, SparkPeople closed its doors for food logging. It changed its focus and no longer provided a free tool for tracking food.

Within the past year, I tried logging food on the Fitbit app. It was ok but I definitely prefer tracking food with Cronometer.

Some of the reasons why I prefer Cronometer is that I can see my macros by food item and by meal. The Fitbit app just gave me the macro breakdowns for the day so I couldn’t tell which meal was low or high in protein or fat.

Logging food is easy. I can tag foods as favorites so they are easy to find. It also lets you swipe a bar code on the product and gives you the nutritional information right away.

One thing I noticed with the Fitbit food logger was that it also provided bar code scanning but often misread the bar code. I’d have to swipe the code several times to get the correct food. Cronometer is much more accurate.

The other feature I really like about Cronometer is the ability to import a recipe from a different website. You simply paste the URL into the field and it creates the recipe for you. You can modify the recipe if necessary but it’s so much easier than having to enter an entire recipe manually.

I use the Android version of Cronometer and I don’t know if the Apple version is different. Sometimes, I access the Cronometer website on my computer. It’s easy to use there too.

I’ve been working hard on tracking food for the past six months. I can see very quickly when I’m overeating or under-eating. I also like seeing how much protein and fiber I get each day. It’s a challenging habit to create because food logging takes work. It helps to use a tool that makes it a bit easier.

Let me know what tool you use to track food.

Achieving 2020 Fitbit Goals

January 5, 2021 / Jill McCauslin / 4 Comments

I ended up setting 2020 Fitbit goals when earlier this year I checked out my Fitbit stats to see what my annual numbers were. I discovered that I’d had a drop in everything in 2019. Even though I was more than half-way through 2020, I decided to set a goal of exceeding my 2019 numbers.

2020 Fitbit Goals

In this chart, you can see where I was at the end of August and then the new data for the balance of the year.

Year	Steps	Floors	Miles	Calories
2020 (Sept – Dec)	1,746,319	2260	777.75	292,848
2020 (Jan – Aug)	2,753,992	4030	1,227.36	561,806
2019	3,688,570	4274	1,649.06	812,909
2018	4,341,364	6801	1,913.71	896,669
2017	4,662,734	5635	2,118.93	910,336
2016	4,824,029	6836	2,182.38	868,856
2015	4,253,875	7124	1,971.57	810,115
2014	3,071,844	5713	1,365.49	778,890
2013 (Mar – Dec)	2,505,079	4481	1,101.9	731,658
Totals	31,847,806	47,154	14,308.15	6,664,090

I met my goal!

Here’s what the annual totals look like.

Year	Steps	Floors	Miles	Calories
2020	4,500,311	6290	2,005.11	854,654
2019	3,688,570	4274	1,649.06	812,909
2018	4,341,364	6801	1,913.71	896,669
2017	4,662,734	5635	2,118.93	910,336
2016	4,824,029	6836	2,182.38	868,856
2015	4,253,875	7124	1,971.57	810,115
2014	3,071,844	5713	1,365.49	778,890
2013 (Mar – Dec)	2,505,079	4481	1,101.9	731,658
Totals	31,847,806	47,154	14,308.15	6,664,090

I met my goal of beating my 2019 numbers but I also beat my 2018 numbers.

2016 remains my banner year so perhaps I should set a goal of making 2021 my highest year in steps. Looking at the numbers, perhaps I’ll aim for reaching 5 million steps for the year. I was going to say, “I don’t know if that’s doable or not but I’ll try” but then remembered that we’re supposed to say things in a more certain way. So, let’s go with, this year I am able to break the 5 million mark in steps.

2021 Goal: 5 million steps

How Many Steps Do I Take in a Year?

September 24, 2020 / Jill McCauslin / 3 Comments

Someone recently asked me how many steps do I take in a year. Apparently I don’t think big enough because I’ve never set an annual goal for myself. I have tinkered with a daily goal of steps and I have had weekly goals but I’ve never set an annual goal. My daily goal is set currently at 10,000 . I’ve changed that number in the past but I just leave it as is now.

The question about an annual goal made me curious about what I’ve done in the past so I logged into the Fitbit dashboard and got some numbers. This was a lot easier to do on my laptop. Using the Fitbit app on my phone was more difficult to get the totals. If you want to check this out, I suggest you use the web version of Fitbit.

I remember Chris sharing her Fitbit data a few years ago. It’s always interesting to look at those totals.

How Many Steps in a Year

Here’s a breakdown of my totals per year for as long as I’ve been wearing a Fitbit.

Year	Steps	Floors	Miles	Calories
2020 (Jan – Aug)	2,753,992	4030	1,227.36	561,806
2019	3,688,570	4274	1,649.06	812,909
2018	4,341,364	6801	1,913.71	896,669
2017	4,662,734	5635	2,118.93	910,336
2016	4,824,029	6836	2,182.38	868,856
2015	4,253,875	7124	1,971.57	810,115
2014	3,071,844	5713	1,365.49	778,890
2013 (Mar – Dec)	2,505,079	4481	1,101.9	731,658
Totals	30,101,487	44894	13,530.4	6,371,242

This is interesting. I had a drop in steps in 2019. Basically that was the year that I moved out of my much larger house that also had stairs in it. That might be enough to account for the drop in steps.

My highest number of steps occurred in 2016. I was running a lot then and it’s also the year that my weight was the lowest.

I have four months left in 2020 to get over 900,000 steps to beat last year’s steps. Although I never set a yearly goal, this has now become one. I just want to beat last year’s total.

My complete total for the past seven years is over 30 million steps. Doesn’t that seem like a lot? I can’t quite comprehend that many steps! I guess you just break it down until you get back to 10,000 steps per day. Actually, I did some very rough calculations to figure out averages and it comes out to approximately 11,000 per day since 2013. I feel great about that!

If you have Fitbit data, feel free to share it with me. I’d love to hear what you have done.