When MyFitnessPal released its Meal Scan feature, I felt like it could be the game-changer I had been looking for when it came to staying on top of my food logging. Tracking and recording every meal has always been a struggle for me, but as a serious runner with high weekly mileage on top of strength training and teaching yoga, I know how important it is to make sure I’m eating enough of the right stuff. That means lots of lean protein, healthy fats, vegetables and fruit, and plenty of carbohydrates in and around my workouts to make sure I’m fueling the work I’m doing — and that can be a tall order.
Ideally, I would log food for at least a week out of every month to ensure I’m on the right track, but I’ve almost always fallen off the food-logging wagon because I’d skip inputting one meal into the app, say I’d do it later, and completely forget. The idea of logging meals with a simple snap of the camera was intriguing, and I committed to trying it out for a week to see if it would convert me.
最初的想法
I can safely say being able to scan my meals rather than searching for them made logging a lot easier (and honestly, more fun, trying to keep the app guessing!). I did realize I’d been unknowingly dropping my protein intake well below where I want it to be and also learned I was falling short of filling my caloric needs on days with longer runs.
如果您努力认真对待食物伐木，这就是您需要了解的有关此应用程序更新的知识：是的，它可以正常工作 - 效果很好。
I admit, I was skeptical an app could quickly scan my meal and parse out what I was eating in just a couple of seconds while I hovered my camera over it. But it really works: Chocolate chip cookies? Check. Steamed mixed vegetables? Check. Rice and chicken? Check, check. I didn’t believe it would be easier to use the camera function to select what I was eating (versus using the search tool), but I was shocked the first morning I used it. The Meal Scan function read my breakfast plate — vegetable omelet with breakfast potatoes — in a few seconds. And once I saved that meal, my daily meal recording got easier since my breakfast is almost always the same.
Obviously, there are some dishes it can’t parse quite yet, but I realized the best way to record a more complex dish was to take a photo of the separate elements before mixing them together: While it read — semi-correctly — my avocado, tomato, cilantro and lime dish as a ‘chunky salad,’ using the camera on the ingredients before I diced them was much more accurate.
伟大的旅程
And I mean literally on the go. During long runs and rides, I alternate between using classic gels and bars, homemade treats, and the occasional coffee shop buys when I’m hitting the dreaded wall. Normally, I would use the scan function and log my mid-workout snacks after the fact. But with coffee shop stops, it’s a lot easier to log a cinnamon roll by quickly pointing the camera at it, selecting it from the pop-up and moving on. This might not seem like a big deal, but when you’re focused on making sure you’re fueling your body to do what you ask of it, logging every calorie is critical. While many people use MyFitnessPal to make sure they’re not overdoing it on carbs or calories, I’m using it to make sure I’m getting enough of the right macronutrients when I need them, in addition to ensuring I’m eatingmostlyclean and not overdoing the junk food. (Confession: I have a serious sweet tooth.)
没有理由
当您必须输入并搜索零食时，很容易跳过零食，但是当您需要做的只是将手机悬停在食物上时（您甚至不必必须拿the picture), it’s so fast it’s impossible to make the excuse of ‘I didn’t have time.’ I also noticed that after a couple of less-than-stellar meals, I felt compelled to add more veggies and cut out a couple of extra cookies. When you see all of your food through your camera lens, what you’re eating becomes brutally obvious. There’s something about holding a camera up to your food that makes you see it differently.
在大多数情况下，我对吃的东西很好，但是偶尔会看到一定数量的垃圾食品堆积在盘子上，使我重新考虑了我的小吃。有几次我什至削减了我坐下来吃饭的饼干数量，改为用酸奶交换一些草莓，或者当我将少量玉米饼碎屑放回并用一些黄瓜片和额外的鸡肉中覆盖时。这并不是要避免额外的卡路里，但这确实使我更加意识到缺少关键大量营养素的饭菜。以一种奇怪的方式，这促使我成为我想以“写下我的饮食”能力做的健康食者。
Check outMeal Scan, now available in the app on iOS with a MyFitnessPal Premium membership. Simply point your camera at your food for real-time food suggestions.
