Discover The Google Calorie Counter Review

Did you know that Google has its own calorie counter? The Google Calorie Counter, found at http://www.google.com/ig/ allows you to track your calories and manage your meals quickly and easily. You use the Google Calorie Counter with your iGoogle custom web page.

There are many reasons to use a running calorie counter. For one thing, it keeps tabs on how much you have already eaten so that you can ration out your remaining calories and stay on your diet. For another thing, it clues you into how many, or in rare cases, how few, calories are in a given item of food.

There are a number of programs both on the web and off that let you count your calories. Many pieces of online software let you keep a daily journal. And, PDAs and the iPhone have applications that let you do the same thing even when you are offline.

What sets the Google Calorie Counter apart is that it sits right on your iGoogle home page. So, if you use iGoogle, it can be a good option for you. You wonít have to carry around a machine or log into a separate site.

You will, however, have to use iGoogle which is a bit clunky. If you have more than a handful of apps, iGoogle can be very slow loading. And, if you donít have a variety of widgets, there´s not a whole lot of point to iGoogle, so it´s a catch-22.

Further, the Google Calorie Counter is difficult to use. There´s no search function. While it includes all kinds of foods including common recipes and popular brands, you have to physically scroll through the letter of the alphabet that the item falls into.

Once you have found the item, you select it and it goes into your meal. You can select main dishes, sides, garnishes, deserts and more for each meal.

Another problem with the Google Calorie Counter is that it only has the three main meals. Many dieters take the advice to eat five or six small meals rather than a big breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is a ìmisc.î category that can cover snacks, but the program is rather inflexible.

There is a feature called "Settings" that lets you put in your gender, age, weight, height, and activity level. It will then give you a "daily amount" to target. As you add foods to the counter, you will be told how many of your daily allotment of calories you´ve used.

The Google Calorie Counter is useful for dieters who already use iGoogle. It has a simple, albeit klunky, interface. The constant reminder of how many calories you have left may force you to modify diet choices later in the day.

However, for most people, there are better alternatives to the Google Calorie Counter. If you use a PDA or iPhone regularly, the apps for those devises will probably suit you better and you wonít have to be connected to a computer to use them. If you don´t use iGoogle already, the Google Calorie Counter is no reason to start. Instead, check out the myriad of food journals and calorie counters available elsewhere on the web.

Free Calorie Counters Available Online

There are a number of free calorie counters available on the internet. These programs allow you to select a specific food and it will tell you how many calories are in one serving. It will also tell you what the recommended serving size is. If you are on a diet, you owe it to yourself to check out the free calorie counters out there.

What should you look for in a calorie counter and how will you know when you have found a good one? This article looks at the basic components of free calorie counters and shows you some of the sophisticated options out there.

Free calorie counters should include basic groceries. An apple is an apple is an apple, no matter how you slice it. Included in this category is dairy, eggs, fruit, meat, poultry, seafood, and vegetables.

But, so much of what we eat today is processed food. So, a good program will also include various branded foods. For instance, you should be able to find out that one serving of Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter equals 2 tablespoons and has 190 calories in it. Additionally, you might find that 16 percent of the food comes from protein, 71 percent from fat, and 14 from carbs. It has 2 grams of fiber.

Sophisticated free calorie counters also include sections for popular recipes. You might learn that the popular Indian dish Chicken Tikka has 232 calories.

Additionally, many free calorie counters include the foods from popular restaurants and fast food outlets. You might be surprised at just how many calories some of your favorite restaurant foods have in them. And, you should take note that most of the time you will consume fewer calories if you go to a hamburger shop than a sit down restaurant.

The calorie counters depend on your ability to judge a serving. Too many times what we judge to be enough for a meal is really multiple servings. To help you with this, the free calorie counters divide foods into their standard suggested serving sizes and tell you what the weight in grams for that amount is.

While most programs simply list the calories in foods, some free calorie counters have a companion program that shows you just how many calories youíve burned by doing specific activities.

Everyone knows that the way you lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume in a given period. To lose 1 pound, you must burn 3500 extra calories than you eat. These calories burned calculators help you determine just how much you can eat based on how much activity you have in a specific day.

Further, if you have an extra cookie at lunch, you will know how many extra minutes you have to hit on the treadmill after work with these programs.

If you are trying to lose weight, search out the internet for one of the free calorie counters. You will gain a lot of insight into your diet when you do.