Hi there everybody this is Monica Reinagal and you're listening to the

nutrition diva quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

Thanks to all of you who've sent emails and posted comments on the show's web page at quick and dirty

tips.com and on the nutrition diva page on Facebook.

I really appreciate all of the positive feedback and I've also gotten some great

suggestions for show topics including this question from Krista who writes is

calorie counting worth it I was counting calories for a while and lost a couple of pounds, she says,

was getting tedious even though I was using an online calorie counter. Is there a better way?

Now as many of you know, I have a blog on nutrition data.com which is the mother of all online

nutrition counters but I'll be the first to admit that logging everything you eat can be really

tedious whether you're using an online tracker or just a

pad of paper.

Even so, I think there can be a big payoff to doing this for at least a few days.

One of two things is very likely to happen when you log every mouthful of food.

One, you may be shocked to learn that your actual diet bears very little resemblance to how you think you eat. Or two, you may just find that writing down

everything you eat is powerful motivation to make better choices. Either way, it's a

great exercise that can help you bring your diet into better alignment with

your nutritional goals. I think it's worth doing for a few days every year or so just as a reality

check. It's also a great tool for solving dietary mysteries, such as why you can't lose weight,

even though you eat hardly anything at all. Ah, maybe it has something to do with that 800 calorie

mocha-chary nugat frothichino you have every afternoon.

Who knew coffee could be so fattening?

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