What’s the best way to ensure that you stick with something you start? To track every aspect of it. There’s something cathartic about recording and analyzing data when it pertains to you and something you’re trying to achieve. This is where I believe most diets go wrong. There’s really no focus, so it’s easy to slip. Even when people try to write down everything they eat, they often fail when that pad and paper isn’t in front of them. But your smartphone is with you at all times. That makes the new CalorieCount.com Android app a perfect diet and exercise accompaniment. Since you always have your phone with you, you have no excuse to not record the data. When you download the app you’ll be prompted to either log into your CalorieCount.com account, or to create a new one. Thankfully, the creation screen is simple and straight forward; it should take you about two minutes, tops, to create an account (and if you type fast it’s even quicker). From there you’ll go to the main screen, which is a visually-pleasing, graphical screen that gives you some easy information about your intake and output. It also breaks down your nutrition intake (fat, carbs, protein) so you can see if you have an optimal distribution. 
Of course, you’ll need to start entering data to get the most out of the app. Click on the food tab atop the screen, and you can search its database of over 200,000 foods. This obviously covers a lot of ground, so you can find many of the foods you’ll find at restaurants and grocery stores across the country. That makes everything easy, since all the nutrition information is contained within the app’s database. If you’re really into the weight loss thing, though, you’ll probably avoid the foods that everyone else eats. After all, as I’ve heard many fitness experts proclaim, if you eat like everyone else you’re going to look like everyone else. For those who like to make their own concoctions, you can create your own custom foods, which you can use over and over again. I like this feature, because I have all sorts of foods that aren’t in the database. It keeps everything in perspective. After the food tab you have the activity tab, which lets you enter in your calorie expenditure for the day. Again, you can search from among the many exercises in the database, or you can create your own. The drawback is that there is no way to accurately determine how many calories you’re burning when doing certain exercises. For example, the app says that circuit training burns 635.6 calories per hour, but that’s going to vary greatly depending on a number of factors, including length of circuit, rest, and the specific exercises performed. But it’s still a decent guideline to help you track your progress. The final tab is where it’s all at: the weight tab. For some reason it sets a target for you, something I definitely do not like. (Sorry, I haven’t weighed 153.3 pounds since high school, and even at 2% body fat I probably wouldn’t be there now.) You can change this option in your Account Settings (under the More tab). It says there is access to the Calorie Count blog, but I do not see it in the app, though I’ve been known to miss things before. I do recommend you check it out: http://caloriecount.about.com/blog. It’s full of simple ideas that you can adapt for your own needs. The app is free, so you can download Calorie Count from the Market.
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