Thinking about food
Fri, 2011-11-04 15:55Written by Eeva, Nokia Wellness Diary team
We have been talking about weight management and healthier habits for a long time. One of the most frequently asked questions is why Wellness Diary doesn’t have a calorie counter.
The reason is really rather simple: We don’t believe counting calories is the key for you reaching your goals. Wellness Diary aims to help you change your habits for good. That’s why we want you to look at what you eat. Wellness Diary recommends monitoring eight different food groups: soft fats, fish, wholegrain, vegetables & fruits, dairy products, sweet snacks, salty snacks and energy-rich drinks. These are divided into two groups, dos and don’ts.
Denying yourself completely of something will simply cause resistance to the change. Limiting the intake amount will make the change gradual, and turning your attention to the better choices will make it easier. That’s why the sweets, salties and energy-rich drinks have a limit per week. A little won’t hurt, but a lot will. You get what you measure.
On the other hand, introducing new things bit by bit, step by step and monitoring the effect they have will help you stick to your resolutions. Wholegrain products have lots of good fiber, fish has healthy oils, and everyone knows you can never have too much of fruit and vegetables.
The idea behind these groups is to draw your focus to portion sizes and creating habits. Introducing new, better foods to your diet at first is easy, but getting the habit to stick may prove challenging. That’s why wellness Diary lets you monitor only three food groups at a time: create habits in them and then tackle the others.
So what’s in a portion? For fruit and vegetables, a portion is about a handful, approximately 80 grams. When you think about it, it’s not that much. In wholegrain, a portion can be a slice of bread, a bowl of porridge or 1.2 dl of wholegrain rice or pasta. You will find the other recommendations within the application, as you add the food group.
Wellness Diary aims to make healthy eating as easy and simple for you as possible. Strive for balance, and you will find better wellness!
- Eeva
Comments
Totally agree.
What I'm finding difficulty wid is that us indians are largely vegetarians and its difficult to measure and feed in info into wellness diary for indian preparations and desserts, etc.
Well said even if I'm not sure I agree fully yet. Anyway, really elegant way of supporting feedback and discussion.
I totally agree with this article. Counting calories is a simplified and often wrong approach to loosing weight unless we are taking about obesity. One thing I miss in Wellness Diary is better exercise metrics. Having only exercise time is too simplified. Pleased add customizable counters for exercises like pushups, situps, etc. Cheers!
Thanks for all your feedback, and my apologies I haven't replied to your messages.
@bartek, glad my rant makes sense!
@milindtapaswi, you have a good point. This version of Wellness Diary doesn't really support different diets such as vegetarianism in its various forms. On the other hand, leaving out meats usually means you're off to a better start in any case :) Also, I've read lots of studies suggesting that spicy food boosts your metabolism, so Indian cuisine should be pretty good for you...
@kim.westerlund, did you land here from the client? If so, that's good! The aim is to keep our users interested, your feedback is very valuable to us.
@macroprost, thanks for the suggestion! I'll pitch it to R&D.
Fully agreed