Cronometer Basics
1. Create an account by signing up for free at cronometer.com. If you’d like, you can share the username and password with me so I can login as you to review your food log entries. We will use these food logs as the primary way to track what you are eating over the next several weeks and beyond. Food tracking creates awareness and weekly tracking is vital to your success. You will become more efficient with the software as time goes on.
2. After youʼve logged in, familiarize yourself with the “add food” and “add note” features and the calendar that appears on the top left of the screen.
Input food log information on the day that corresponds to its intake. For example, today is October 27th, 2013. If that date is not already selected, I simply click on that date on the calendar to complete that dayʼs food log. Whatever day is active will appear as a highlighted blue square. Use “add food” to place a particular food into the food log. After clicking “add food”, start typing a food in the “Name” search box that you intend to place into the log. When you start to type “orange jui”, foods in the database that match that letter sequence will appear. Select the best option available for the food youʼre looking for. Do the same for each successive food.
If you canʼt find an exact match for what you ate just do the best you can to select an equivalent. You can use the “add note” function, discussed below, to indicate what you actually did have if you feel the need to clarify your food choice(s).
Use “add note” for a variety of things like separating meals, noting the time of a meal, displaying a positive or negative reaction to a meal or food, providing temperature and pulse data, indicating that you ate the raw carrot salad, or expressing the time, duration, and type of exercise.
3. Use “Add Note” to distinguish what meals you ate during a particular day. Without using the add note feature all of the foods are listed in a row, but it becomes difficult for your coach to determine what foods where combined to comprise a meal.
For the example below, I used “add note” to display “Upon Waking 7 am; temp 97.8F, pulse 68 BPM”. I used “add food” to search and find orange juice and made sure to edit the right amount to match my consumption, in this case 1 cup of orange juice. I did the same for the gelatin powder and salt.
Notice that I also utilized the add note feature to indicate my waking temperature and pulse rate. I could also add something like “slept poorly, woke at 1 am to use the bathroom”, “woke up with a headache”, or “slept well”. The add note feature is very versatile.