Thing 34: Fitness Calculators

I created accounts for both Nutridiary and FitDay and compared them with our local fitness calculator Fit City Challenge. Between Nutridiary and FitDay I liked FitDay best. I had more of the foods that I eat in it's database and it was very straightforward to use to get a breakdown of how I obtain my calories.

The clean interface also helped FitDay be more intuitive. A less busy interface means that there will be less to distract you and you are more likely to find what you are looking for. The activities list was not as extensive as I would have liked but it was very easy to approximate a similar exercise. I was disappointed in that I did not see anywhere on either site to input whether you take dietary supplements or not--especially things like multi-vitamins and calcium.

On a separate comparison, I'll still log my exercise time in Fit City Challenge because of the incentives at work. According to the FitCity site: "Eligible employees will be rewarded with one half () vacation day for every 200 points earned through participation in the Fit City Challenge, for a maximum of 400 points and one (1) vacation day per calendar year." Not bad for something I do everyday anyway. Might as well get credit for it.

One thing that does bother me though is the over reliance of many of these calculators on solely the BMI alone. If you are athletic, then you know that muscle weighs more than fat. A football player will be classified as obese based on BMI alone. So as with any of these fitness calculators, keep that in mind and get a better picture by getting a body fat test during your annual physical at the doctor. Overall I'll log my fitness hours on Fit City Challenge but keep my food diary with FitDay. Even though I'll log both on both for comparison I like those features the best on each.