Counting calories and monitoring nutrients for daily food intake often seems to be much easier said than done. For senior caregivers looking to monitor their own nutrition or that of a senior client, the My Fitness Pal app offers an ideal platform to track foods and their nutritional content right on their smartphone.
The My Fitness Pal application matches up with the My Fitness Pal website, and foods and exercise can be logged on either platform. When you first set up your My Fitness Pal account, it will ask for basic information about yourself- or your senior client, if that is who you will be using the application for. The target daily calorie intake will be factored off of the weight, height, age, activity level and weight goal (lose weight, maintain weight, etc.) entered for the account.
Once an account is established, you can log food for that particular day. Your target number of calories will appear on your home screen, and as you log food, it will subtract from that number and tell you how many calories you have left for that day. It also measures fat, sugar and sodium intake, making it easy to recognize and correct excess. The database of foods includes many popular restaurants as well as the option to search a generic food item or create your own entry if you know the calories in your meal.
Users also have the ability to log exercise with the application, which in turn adjusts the number of calories allotted for that day to account for calories burned during activity.
The application is available for iPhone and Android and is described below:
“Lose weight with MyFitnessPal, the fastest and easiest-to-use calorie counter for Android/iPhone. With the largest food database of any Android/iPhone calorie counter (over 3,000,000 foods), and amazingly fast food and exercise entry, we’ll help you take those extra pounds off! There is no better diet app – period.”
App Name: My Fitness Pal
Cost: Free
Download the application for Apple or Android products.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discover additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help to relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
