The Daily Plate
The Daily Plate is a calorie-tracking tool with a database of more than 450,000 food items to help you track your meals and meet your calorie goals. All types of popular restaurants, generic food items and even recipes are there for you to add to your plate. You can also track your workouts with The Daily Plate. For instance, if you do 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, The Daily Plate will tell you exactly how many calories you burned. It's a great tool to use to lose weight and get healthy.
Here are the easiest ways to use The Daily Plate successfully.
Set reasonable goals
Most people start their diet and exercise plan without setting a goal, or with a weight-loss goal that is out of their means. The best way to set a goal you will be sure to achieve is to start in stages.
Start your Daily Plate diet plan with a goal of losing 5 pounds. A healthy amount of weight to lose per week is 2 pounds. After you sign in to your LIVESTRONG.COM account, go to The Daily Plate section of LIVESTRONG.COM and click "My Calorie Goals." You will enter your age, height, weight and weight-loss goal, and the generator will then tell you exactly how many calories you can eat per day to achieve that goal. After the first week, if you find it too difficult to reduce your caloric intake as much as the calorie calculator suggests, reduce the number of pounds you want to lose per week, and follow that calorie goal until you think you can reduce more.
After you lose your first 5 pounds set your next goals to 10 pounds. Make sure you re-calculate your calorie goals after every 5 pounds—your caloric allowance will change as you lose weight.
Track your food every day
The most important key to The Daily Plate is making sure you track your meals daily. Every snack (even if you just grab a handful of almonds) and every drink (that glass of wine at dinner), should be accounted for. If there is a food not listed on The Daily Plate, you can enter it in yourself or manually enter in your calories. By tracking your meals every day, you can make sure that you are truly hitting your calorie goals and on the path towards healthy weight loss.
Modify your diet if needed
Not losing the weight as fast as you'd like? Check out your daily intake of fat, sugar and carbs. Maybe you aren't eating enough protein, or maybe your body has grown accustomed to your diet schedule. Mix it up a bit. Most dieticians suggest not eating carbs after 6 p.m. and to have dinner before or at 7 p.m. If you are having trouble maintaining your calories goals or if you eat out often, check the nutritional info for the restaurant you are going to beforehand and choose a meal you know will fit into your diet. Knowledge is power—it's better to know beforehand then be surprised afterwards.
Take breaks
Constantly watching your calories can be taxing. If tracking your foods daily for an extended period of time becomes too much, then take a break! Re-adjust your calories goals to "Maintain my current weight" and keep that number in mind when you go out. If you've been tracking your foods for a period of time, you'll know a ballpark number of how many calories are in each meal. Just keep a mental tab of how many calories you've consumed throughout the day, and when it's time for dessert you'll know if you can treat yourself to that sundae, without taking away from all the hard work you put into your diet.
Track your success
The Daily Plate does more than serve as a tool to calculate your calories. You can track your weight loss, join groups with other members of LIVESTRONG.COM and even track the breakdown of calories, fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbs, sugars and fiber. It's the perfect way to eat well, set reasonable goals and lose weight the healthy way.
Member Comments
by bibixs on November 11, 2008 at 9:32 PM
I was wondering if The Daily Plate keeps track of the weight you lose by itself?
I mean, if you set your calorie Goal for two pounds per week, and then you stick to the number of calories it settles, and all week you track exactly that calories, will the daily plate reduce your weight on two pounds and recalculate you calorie goal by itself?
I dont know if im making sense, sorry, english is not my mother language
by staciejaye on December 4, 2008 at 8:28 PM
No it does not track your weight loss for you in this way. The reason is that even though you may have set your weight loss goal as 2 pounds per week, that's not necessarily what you're losing due to other factors such as exercise and possibly not following your daily calorie requirements as you should. You have to manually enter your new body weight approx every 5 pounds you lose.
by imchricket on January 1, 2009 at 9:09 AM
I made a mistake and created date December 30, 2009 which isn't here yet. I can't get it to delete. Does anyone know how to do this. It now defaults to that date when I'm trying to enter 2008 foods.
thanks
by sweetapril on January 16, 2009 at 9:07 AM
I am wondering if I should follow the suggested daily caloric amount or go by what it is telling me after taking out my activity? My net calories end up negative or under 500 everyday! There are times that it is also tells me I can eat 2,000 more calories. That just seems really high and I think I would be dropping weight like crazy (which I'm not). I have my activity level as sedentary and then add in my activities (like child care and walking). Any suggestions?
by lisaannesmith on February 21, 2009 at 2:19 PM
i am having this issue as well. i am also wondering. Does anyone know? My weight is just being maintained.
by numberonebun on July 23, 2009 at 6:07 PM
I've been wondering the same thing. If it says that you can consume 1250 calories a day to meet your goals is that including or excluding workouts?
by stansettle on February 10, 2009 at 7:38 PM
Gold membership mentions, " Unlimited Daily Plate tracking
get unlimited tracking of your foods. You will never lose any calorie data." So what is the 'limit' for the standard edition of the daily plate?
by willgbr on April 6, 2009 at 4:47 PM
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by bekaaz on June 25, 2009 at 6:37 AM
Is there a place listed of what the daily recommendations of each category is? Like what it is recommending for protein, fiber, etc.?
by Poptop on June 27, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Is there a way to get the Daily Plate to track servings of fruits and vegetables?
by mbj09 on July 31, 2009 at 1:50 PM
i joined some time ago and then quit using it and the set up has changed. i have created an account but cannot figure out to start tracking my food...everytime i go my plate or food diary i get the same page...what am i missing?
by Misty88 on August 16, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Hello All -- I recently had gastric bypass so I am only eating 1/4 cup of food per meal and 4-8 meals a day. My daily calorie goal is 800 which automatically sets my protein goal pretty low, but my actual protein goal is 50-60grams daily. Is there a way to change my protein goal without uping my calorie goal on here? I haven't found one yet.