Customizing avocado to grams in Fitday
 

Hi med234!
I'll try to write it comprehensable. :)

Ok. As for avocado. There are two types: Florida - with green, smooth skin and California - with black, "bubbly" skin, respectively. California is the most LC-friendly, half the amount of carbs, double the fat. So, let's use California.

1. Open two browser windows of Fitday. In the first one (we'll get to the second one later), search for "avocado california" and then click on the name (don't click on "add" at this point) so that you get the nutrition facts table up.

2. In a new window, open Carbohydrate Counter (see orange toolbar on top of this page, "Low Carb Tools" > Carbohydrate Counter. Search for "avocado". (Unfortunately Carb Counters search engine isn't as advanced as Fitdays, so one has to go through every item that says "avocado" in one way or another... Or you could try "California" instead, in this case.) Most "standard" entries in Fitday have exact equivalents in Carb Counter.

3. When you've found "Avocado, raw, California" in Carb Counter as well and selected it, you will have the 100gram values there, in another nutrition table.

4. Now, here is the trick, in order to get the exact proportional values of everything, incl vitamins/minerals* into the new customised version of "Avocado, California, med234 version" in Fitday, instead of having to calculate every single RDA% manually:

Check the calorie amount (for instance) for 100g in Carb Counter. You will notice that for avocado it's 177. Now, take this figure and divide it by the calorie amount shown per "cup, pureed" in Fitday, i.e. 407.1. The result is 0.4347=0.435. Now you know how much part of a cup corresponds to 100g of Avocado. In the Fitday window, write "0.435" in the top serving box, instead of the default value "1". Press "Refresh Nutrients". Now both Fitday and Carb Counter should read the same.

5. Now, pick the other Fitday window you opened and chose "New Custom Food!" and "GO". Another, empty nutrition facts table will come up. Name your entry (you may change the name to anything you like, such as "Avocado, black", "Peggy" or whatever suits your needs.) , write "100" and choose "gram" in the scroll menue. All you do now is to copy all information from the first Fitday window to the next. Click "Save Custom Food".

6. All your customised foodlings will show up in the "add custom" menu. Next time you eat your avocado, Fitday will present you with "oz, lb, gram and kilo" to choose from instead. If you've had 70gram of avocado, then just enter 70 and chose "gram". Or chose oz if that suits you better.

La voila!

:)

/gil

* If you don't care about the vitamin and mineral count in Fitday and only want to use it for pure fat/carb/protein check, then you can skip moment # 1 and 4 and just copy over the other values directly from Carb Counter into a new custom window.

Thank you so much, Gil.
That must have taken you a while, but now, with your help, I am determined to crack it!

I couldn't believe that if I have 70g one day and 80g the next, i would have to customise both entries - and now i see that I don't.

It sounds really complicated, but since I don't eat all that many different foods, if i just do a few a day, I should get everything in before too long.

I'l let you know how I get on!

Please do, med234! :)
Glad I could be of help. And, don't worry, it actually didn't take me that long. Doing this manouvre gets faster and faster every time, once you get the hang of it. (I also happen to be one of these strange creatures who enjoys explaining things like this to fellow earth citizens.)

Best of luck with your Fitday pal! :wave:

/gil

Hi, Gil.
I'm almost finished inputting yesterday's food!
Some foods are quite hard to find, but since this will put them in the memory, it's worth taking the time.
I couldn't find creme fraiche or splenda, so I'll have a look on the packets.
I can't wait to see the end result, to see if I am doing Atkins right!

Thank you so much for your help.
I hope others will read your instructions too.

Med

Hi med!
Well done you! :clap:

Just another little tip. The memory of Fitday is rather shortlived (a week at the most, me thinks.) So if you want to be SURE you find that special food again, just customize it instead (klick on the food, then in the new window, click the "customize this food" button, I don't even think you have to rename it, just click on "Save custom food") and you will always have it neatly saved in your personal menue.

If you then scroll down to the bottom of your "add custom" menue in the main window, you can choose "all custom foods..." and klick OK. Then you'll have one big window with all of your personalised foodles to choose between, where you can tick and add several at the same time. Saves time, very handy.

Cheers!

/gil

After putting in my last 2 items for yesterday, my %s work out just right and I am delighted!

bu I'm sorry, Gil, I'm lost now!
When I did each item, i clicked 'save custom food' and now they all show in the list for 'add custom food'
Are you saying those 'custom foods' I have made only stay in the memory for a short while?
You said: "klick on the food, then in the new window, click the "customize this food" button"
From where do i click on the food? I haven't found somewhere that says "customise this food".

That's a great tip to add several at a time!

Med

Congrats!! :D

About the short memory thing, I think we misunderstood eachother. Your customized food stays where it is, in your own list, don't worry. :)

But you wrote that some items were "hard to find" and I thought you meant other entries, apart from your own custom food. Other entries you select stay in memory too, for a week or so (under "add recent".)

If you, lets say, have used a very special type of beef cut (and Doug knows that there are tons of beef cut entries in Fitday to chose from - significant for the US huh? Five hundred beef cuts and no creme fraiche...;)) and you have browsed your way into the perfect description and selected/added that onto your list of "Today's Foods".

What you can do, for future use, is to click on that beef entry in your "Today's Foods" list and then, when its nutrition table opens up, chose "customize this food" and then "Save custom food" (no need to change anything). Then you will always have that beef cut handy in your "custom food" list instead of having to search all over Fitday for it again, the next time you've bought a similar cut.

(It's no real point in doing this for regular stuff you use every day, like "coffee" or "heavy cream" as they are as easily found through the search engine anyway, and too long lists under "add custom" can be a bit unpractical too.)

When you get more hang of this, try to customize your recipes too. Makes it so easy and quick to enter your menue of the day. Instead of having to list 20 ingredients every time, you can just chose "med's Delicious Casserole" or whatever. Saves a lot of time (provided that you follow that recipe religiously, of course.)

---------- next level of Fitday tips starts here ----------

In order to customize your recipes, just chose an empty day (preferably back in time, from before you started using Fitday) and then list all ingredients and their measures (don't forget salt etc if you want to keep an eye on your sodium intake through Fitday.) Then open a second window of Fitday, chose "New custom food" like normal, name your new entry, fill in how many servings the recipe is calculated for and then just copy the info in the top nutrition box of the first window to the new custom food window.

For info on cholesterol you need to click on and have a look at each animal product's (don't forget diaries!) nutrition table in the first window and add up their cholesterol values.

For sodium/potassium mg values and vitamin/mineral RDA%, press "reports" in the first window (left menue bar) and select "Am I meeting my nutrient requirements?" and "OK". There you have a table of all vitaminerals and salts (sodium/potassium) with the mg/%RDA. Just copy these values over to your new custom food as well and then save.

Fitday is the best. :yay:

Cheers,
/gil

Thanks, gil.
You are my new best friend!

'hard to find' I just meant for some items there are so many pages of things to wade through before you find what you want!

I'll certainly come back to your instructions when I start doing recipes. I'm only on 30g CHO per day at the moment, so it is pretty basic!

I have a question about Fitday, there may be no answer, or it may have already been asked on here. When I look to see if I am "meeting my nutrient requirements?" it of course say I am missing a lot of these. However I am taking OneSource for women, as well as chromium picolinate, is there a way to put these vitamins into the system so I can know if I am really meeting my requirements or not?

~Just wonderin'

Hi Wonderer,
Of course there is. :)

Your pill should say on the box/can/package how many mg/mcg of each vitamin/mineral it contains. Sometimes it even shows how much of the (US) RDA% each nutrient is.

1. Chose "new custom food", fill in your vitamin pill's name on top, chose "1 serving", fill in "0" everywhere on the upper half of the nutrition table and then on the lower (where the vitamins and minerals are counted) either:

a) - if the RDA% is stated on your package, just fill in these figures and save.

b) - if milligram or microgram figures are stated on your package - open a second page of Fitday, chose "reports" > "am I meeting my nutrient requirements" and just keep that page up as a reference...

2. For each vitamin/mineral, check the value on your package, then in the window you just opened, compare to the (4:th) table that says "RDA", take the value stated on your box and divide it with the stated RDA in Fitday (f.ex. if Fitday RDA says 800mcg on Vitamin A RDA, and your box says 400mcg - then divide 400 with 800 = 0.5. This means 50% of the Fitday RDA for Vitamin A is covered by your pill. So in the Vitamin A box you should fill in "50".

Then do this for each vitamin/mineral. It sound like a chore, but you only have to do this once. :) After this, Fitday will understand what you're eating. ;)

Best,
/gil

Ps. Chromium isn't recognized in Fitday (not being a "vital" mineral) so unfortunately you have to keep that count yourself... as I do. :)

Thank you, that wasn't hard at all. I should have been able to figure that out. I was just nervous about using the whole custom food option.

You're welcome, Wonderer. :)

The "custom food" option is a cool tool. And you can always delete one if you messed up ("Delete this food"-button), alternatively change the values afterwards ("Edit this food"-button). No need to be nervous.

Best of luck!

/gil

Am trying to learn and understand how to use Fitday.com.
Example: I want to enter my tuna salad. The entry shows it with onions, relish, eggs, etc.
I just fix mine with tuna/water, 1 hardboiled egg, 1 tbls+ regular mayo, some celery seed and some dried dill. How do I elimate these extras that pop up?
And how can I save breakfast each day?
Eat 2 eggs scrambled w/water, pinch of salt, 1oz cheddar cheese, 2 strips of nitrate free bacon, 2 cups decaf green tea.
HELP - please

Hello :)

I'm new here and 7 days into Atkins (-4.5 lbs) and am in the darkest possible range of ketosis on my strips, so I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm concerned, however, that I may not be eating the 20 carbs because of my use of Fitday.

In Dr. Atkin's book, he lists certain foods as 0.0 (e.g. shrimp), but when I put the 2 cups I ate into Fitday, it registers as 3 carbs. And what about veggies--does Fitday just count carbs or does it look at effective carbs-do I have to customize everything with fiber?

Wondering b/c I've been feeling lightheaded, crabby, deprived and hungry (today was better I have to say).

I'm so thrilled I've found this site!!! What a fabulous resource full of such knowledgable people--thank you! :yay:

Hi Meows. :wave:

About the fiber... yes, fitday seperates the fiber, you just have to glance at it and do the subtraction in your head. At the top center of the main page (foods eaten today), you'll notice a table that says "calories eaten today". It will say something like:

carbohydrates: 25
fiber: 6

...so you know you've had 19 g of net carbs. :thup:

When I checked "shrimp, baked or broiled", there were spices listed in the ingredients (on the fitday page.) That would account for the 3 g carbs. If your shrimp has no spices added, you can either make a custom shrimp entry, or ignore the 3 g carbs that it gives you.

HTH. :cool:

Hi blueflyer,

I just enter each ingredient, rather than look for tuna salad for example. It may seem to take a bit longer, but it's the only way to be accurate.
If you are going to be making the same recipe regularly, it may be worth putting it into Custom foods. Just enter all the ingredients (for any recipe), then click save and write down all the info, ie grams of protein, fat etc. Then feed all those numbers into Custom foods and you simply find it there next time. :)

Same with breakfast if you have exactly the same each day. ;)

HTH

:rose:Rosebud:rose:

Kristine
 

Thanks so much for your quick reply--I was reading the carbs at the bottom total--not looking at the top numbers and subtracting! I thought something wasn't quite right there. And thanks for looking up the shrimp too!

Cheers :p

I've begun a journal on fitday but how do I get it to show here? I'm so confused! :confused:

Hi,

Here is a link to the common issues posted in our "Comments Box and Technical Questions" area. :thup: It's near the bottom of Karen's post.

Thanks....I'll give it a try!

Ok...I give up; still can't find the http on the tool bar.

Tampa girl, have you created a public link in Fitday? That's the first thing you must do (in Fitday, log in, chose "home" and scroll down for instructions.)

To paste that link into your signature on this board:
1. go to profile>signature
2. in the tool bar right above the gray window, click on the small pic of a blue globe with a link in front of it (insert hyperlink)
3. In the first popup window, write "my fitday" or whatever text you want to have shown in your profile. Click ok.
4. In the second popup window, paste the link to your public version of Fitday. Click ok.

Done.

Cheers,
gil

Hi everyone! I make turkey burgers with bulk ground turkey.. and I also use TVP. So when adding up my carbs, i have to break down my turkey burger mixture..

Fiber
 

Someone asked: "how do i get the fiber without the carbs?"
One way I try to incorporate more fiber is cabbage.
you can use them steamed for roll ups.
sautee cabbage in olive oil and garlic and scorch it a little... season with fresh ground pepper and fresh lemon.
can't remember offhand carb count: 1/2 cup has 1 gr of carbs?

Oh, goody! I've never understood the point of using measuring cups at all, which is why, after 30 years in the US, I've never bothered to "cook American." I mean, once you've poured a cup of milk into the bowl, the cup is all wet and you then want to measure two cups of flour?? Why not use scales for dry stuff like the rest of the world, and ounces/liters for liquids? Dr. Atkins wants me to eat 1/2 cup of lettuce??? How on earth do you get lettuce into half a cup? To H*ll with it, I say.

how do I figure out counts for a big salad?
 

I joined Fitday.com last night and am trying to personalize it. I always have a pretty big salad for lunch, but am trying to figure out how to get all the counts for it. There are some veggies, meat, dressing, and lettuce. But I don't know exactly how much celery, pepper, and broccoli I use. How do I costumize this? Also, I am up to 900 calories already, if I am supposed to go 10-12 x's my body weight in calories, that means I only have about 500 left for the day. In a high fat diet, that means I can't eat that much afterall. Help!

Hi there my3kids,

The 10-12 guideline is for the minimum number of calories. This is definitely not a low calorie plan. ;) At this stage, you really only have to worry about carbs, not calories.

I always enter my salad ingredients as ½ cup each of cucumber, pepper etc. And about 2 cups, sometimes more, of lettuce.
When I first started, I actually measured all of my salad ingredients in a cup measure, just so I knew approximately how much I used. But i don't think you need to worry too much about this. You can always just assume it's about, say, half a cup, and see what the carb counts are. There are so few carbs in salad vegies, I don't believe it's worth worrying too much about exact amounts.

Cheers.

:rose:Rosebud:rose:

Oh, I didn't realize that the 10-12 rule was the minimum. I am so relieved! I was trying to track my calories, carbs ect today and when my breakfast was 500 cals, I was a little worried. It wasn't huge either. It's okay not to count all the cals to the "T"? Is there such thing as too much cals, and fat? I only have 10 lbs to lose, will this take me till the summer?

Hullo again,

I really think you need to start thinking of this as a way of life, and stop worrying about those few pounds. ;)

At 5'8 and 137 pounds, you are already at the bottom of the range of normal weights for your height. It concerns me that by worrying too much you may be putting yourself at risk of an eating disorder.

How about celebrating the fact that you are at such a wonderful weight, and just relaxing and enjoying a wonderful and healthy way to eat?

:rose:Rosebud:rose:

Yes, I am thinking of this as a new way of eating, but sometimes I forget. Thanks for reminding me. I feel so much better,less tired all the time, less cravings, and less of a need to go to the pantry for something sweet. I have had a history of eating problems but nothing since I was a teenager. I had 3 kids so that took me away from that. But now, I am not concerned about the number so much as the flab and juggle on my butt and legs. It has gotten progressively worse since my 3 child. I will spare you the details, but it has just gotten out of control.
So, anyway, thanks for your encouragement!