Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => The Knowledge => Health & Fitness => Topic started by: Bobby on 01 April, 2019, 08:34:22 am

Title: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Bobby on 01 April, 2019, 08:34:22 am
Over the last couple of months i’ve convinced myself that i’m wheat or gluten sensitive.  (Stomach and bowel issues for a day or two after consuming wheat).

I used an app called cara that hopes to tell you most common foods on your best & worst days, but it has no concept of ‘time of day’.  So, if I forgot & ate bruschetta (ciabatta) then felt like crap & ate salad etc for the next two days it’ll tell my my most common food was salad etc  :facepalm:

Does anybody have recommended apps they use for this?

Thanks
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 01 April, 2019, 11:39:47 am
App?

I have, in the past, kept a food diary.

The most important thing is to remember to use it and write down everything you eat. Also remember that ingredients change.

I was caught out by Pringles. Used to be potato plus salt and flavourings. Then they changed them to 50% wheat in an effort to avoid paying VAT.
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: hellymedic on 01 April, 2019, 12:42:43 pm
I'm a smartphone-free Luddite so you can ignore me anyway.

No app would be much use unless it knew ALL the ingredients of all you ate.

Suspect a paper notebook would be better, combined with FULL information gathered at leisure from a desktop/laptop.

You might compile a list of wheat breads so you don't forget...
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: sib on 01 April, 2019, 12:55:30 pm
Myfitnessapp is easy to use as a food diary (in additional to exercise if you wish).
It does record/analyse the content particularly cals and carb/fat /protein.
It won't show gluten.
Notwithstanding any queries about its accuracy it does raise your awareness about what you're eating.
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Kim on 01 April, 2019, 04:25:08 pm
A friend just takes photographs of everything they eat, and goes through the google photostream later to log things in a Bullet Journal (which I think is a wanky time-sink, but seems to be less of a distraction than an electronic equivalent might be), along with symptoms, sleep quality, etc.

This seems more reliable than getting the journal out and logging food at the time, particularly when eating in a hurry to manage medication side-effects.  Your ADHD may vary.
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Kim on 01 April, 2019, 04:30:06 pm
No app would be much use unless it knew ALL the ingredients of all you ate.

Suspect a paper notebook would be better, combined with FULL information gathered at leisure from a desktop/laptop.

Surely in this context an app is just an easier (and more importantly, searchable and statistics-generating), always-with-you way to keep notes.  If it doesn't let you enter arbitrary food, then it's unfit for purpose.  Naturally I'd lean towards luddite technology like a spreadsheet or flat-file database, but maybe a specific app can save some of the work by eg. being able to recognise food items from their barcodes.
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Bobby on 02 April, 2019, 07:15:18 am
I was hoping there is an app that’d know most ingredients- would happily pay for that!  :thumbsup:

Main convenience is the fact I always have my phone, but i’m not against a good old spreadsheet (I do love a pivot table!)
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 02 April, 2019, 07:57:41 am
I was hoping there is an app that’d know most ingredients- would happily pay for that!  :thumbsup:

Main convenience is the fact I always have my phone, but i’m not against a good old spreadsheet (I do love a pivot table!)
See my pringle incident. No app could possibly keep up with the changes, and nobody with a serious allergy (or intolerance) should rely on such a thing. Read the ingredients!
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Bobby on 02 April, 2019, 10:08:49 am
See my pringle incident. No app could possibly keep up with the changes, and nobody with a serious allergy (or intolerance) should rely on such a thing. Read the ingredients!

Understood, I'm just learning about this intolerance as it's new to me - means I don't know how much detail to track or check, as I'm not even sure what i'm intolerant to yet :(
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: hellymedic on 02 April, 2019, 01:16:02 pm
I think EVERY manufactured food merits review of its ingredients every few months.

I spend AGES reading about the ingredients and composition of my groceries even though we have neither a weight problem nor any food intolerance.
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 April, 2019, 04:49:25 pm
There are some reasonable apps out there, although perhaps not entirely suitable for you.

I recommend you look At:

NutraCheck (UK based)
Cronometer (very detailed breakdown of macros, electrolytes etc)

MyFitnessPal that lots of people use often has incorrect data added by customers, plus it has loads of US products which are different to ours.
Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Dave_C on 14 June, 2019, 02:26:33 pm
Bobby, you work for a Software house, can you not get someone to write an app for you? Could you get it to zap barcodes to grab the ingredients automatically?

Hope you are in good spirits and this food thing is not getting you down.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Food/symptom diary
Post by: Bobby on 30 June, 2019, 04:19:21 pm
Cheers Dave, am getting there - pretty much understand that I have a low tolerance to gluten-foods, and doing well avoiding that on a day to day basis... cycling is a different challenge, am still going to leave audax alone for a while yet (but got a new MTB to stay fit on instead  :thumbsup: )