The secret to any weight loss program is tracking your activity and your food intake.  Smartphone technology has spawned many apps that help you do this task easily.  Some are simple, like photographing everything you eat, to ones that track your steps and activity automatically.

One that I have been using for the last three months is MyFitnessPal an app that you can get on most smartphone platforms including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.  They also launched a new app for the iPad.  If you have a FitBit then you can also integrate this easily into your MyFitnessPal account.  The app is free, but if you don’t have a smartphone, you can log into www.MyFitnessPal.com to sign-up and start tracking your food intake.

At the beginning of each day you have a total number of calories that you can eat.  As you add the foods you eat the number goes down allowing you to track your total calorie intake for the day.  It’s not as fancy as other apps, but the list of foods is exhaustive and it is easy to add foods to your list.  It also remembers the foods you have entered in a “my list” section.

If you are a “seasoned pro” when it comes to weight loss strategies or a beginner and you would like to shed some extra weight, I highly recommend that you give MyFitnessPal a shot.  Give it two-months and I am sure you will agree that it works well.

To learn more about MyFitnessPal you can login to the website or read their blog.

And for more tips for long-term weight loss success, read here!