How to lose weight while eating takeout every night

TL;DR: Transform your diet and shed pounds with Fooducate, the ultimate meal-tracking app. Get lifetime access for $39.99 with code SAVENOW for a limited time!

Is this a judgment-free zone? Good, because I have something to get off my chest: I gained ten pounds over the winter just from Taco Bell and cookie dough—no exaggeration. It only really hit me when I realized I went up a pants size, and I wasn’t about to spend all summer being self-conscious about my stomach.

I figured if I could eat the weight on, I could also not-eat the weight off (in a healthy way!)—aka, I could track my meals. While there are many great apps out there, I also didn’t want to get stuck paying another subscription fee for the foreseeable future. MyFitnessPal wanted $19.99/month, but Fooducate was only $39.99 for lifelong access with code SAVENOW during New York Post’s version of Prime Day!

I went with Fooducate, and this was my experience using the app:

I lost ten pounds in two months

Fooducate helped me set a realistic—and healthy—goal for weight loss and meal tracking. For motivation, I entered my current and target weights with a goal date, and the app calculated a recommendation for how many calories I should eat in a day.

Something so eye-opening about counting my calories is that I wasn’t technically on a diet. Sure, I understand eating a Doritos Locos Taco isn’t a healthy dinner option, but it’s not totally off the table for weight loss if it’s within that daily goal set by Fooducate! Nothing is, really, as long as I’m keeping track.

That reminds me, logging food is my favorite Fooducate feature. I’ve tried other meal-tracking apps, but Fooducate’s system is by far the easiest. The barcode scanner lets me hold up my camera to any food or drink and adjust the amount I ate to add it to my meal log. The search tool is also great when I can’t access barcodes—*cough* Taco Bell trips *cough*.

 

Painfully helpful grades on foods

One thing I don’t like about Fooducate is that it grades each of my food choices and my overall meals for the day. I’m being a little sarcastic here if you can’t tell.

This system is supposed to help you make better food choices—an apple would give you an “A” rating, and Doritos would drag you down to a “D+,” and you’d get an average for the entire day. I don’t like this much because some of it is obvious, and other times, I’m a little surprised because I think certain choices would be healthier than others.

Sometimes, I think, “I’m trying my best here, Fooducate! What do you want from me?” For example, peanut butter. I’m a vegetarian and rely on peanut butter for easy protein. Do you know what Fooducate rates that as? A “B.” Things like that drag my overall grade down, and it just kind of grinds my gears, but it’s more so the accuracy and the reminder that I should still be eating better that I don’t love.

Discovering dietary problems I didn’t know I had

Even though Fooducate was supposed to help me slim down for summer, it also helped me uncover a problem I unknowingly had with my vegetarian diet! My macro tracking on the app revealed my protein intake was too low. I won’t share by how much, but enough. 

I used the barcode scanner feature at the grocery store to explore more high-protein options and discovered oatmeal and the obvious protein powder as some ways to supplement my diet. I’m unsure if I would’ve ever realized this without tracking my meals, but I’ve definitely noticed a difference in my blood sugar (I don’t feel weirdly sick when I drink tea anymore).

Check out my improved macros:

Logging my workouts and staying active

In addition to eating a little less and cleaner, I also started doing pilates. (By the way, I highly recommend YouTubing “mat pilates.”) I like to log my workouts and walks on Fooducate, so I have all my wellness tracking in one place.

Another thing I’m not a huge fan of with the app, though, is that it will try to calculate the amount of calories that I burned during the pilates session or walk. Then, it adds that amount to the total number of calories I can eat in a day, implying that if I exercise, I can eat more cookie dough and stop at Taco Bell guilt-free.

For a while, that’s exactly what I thought it all meant. I was devastated when I was talking with a friend and learned that you are, in fact, not supposed to eat back the calories you burn. Here is your warning!

Final thoughts

After using Fooducate for about two months and dropping ten pounds (I reached my target weight!), I plan to continue using the app to maintain my weight and continue these healthy habits. After all, I have lifelong access to the app.

If you’re interested, the New York Post has an unbeatable price on Fooducate Pro that no one else can top: $39.99 with code SAVENOW at checkout (reg. $149.97). This coupon expires July 21 at 11:59 p.m. PT, so act fast!

StackSocial prices subject to change.