Tracking Food with Ease Using BodySite’s Food Tracker

The best food tracker is available on the web and in BodySite’s mobile app!  

How Does BodySite’s Food Tracker Work? 

The food tracker your patients want and that your practice needs for better patient compliance is available to you right inside your own BodySite provider account and app. The database of foods has over 800,000 foods to search so that your patients can always track what they ate while following your lifestyle plan. Even if your practice has it’s own brand of protein or your patient needs to add their own custom food, it’s no problem. You and your patients can both add custom foods to their food tracking, making the entire experience as personalized as can be. And, BodySite’s food tracker includes a built-in bar code food scanner on the mobile application for even easier food tracking.

Your patients also have the ability to upload pictures of the food they ate. We know that tracking food, calories, macros and portions isn’t the approach for everyone or for every program.  Sometimes you just want patients to SHOW you what they ate or TELL you about it, without all of the nitty gritty details. Fortunately, BodySite’s food tracker lets patients add a picture and a note for each meal of the day. They can still track calories and more, right down the smallest detail. But if they just want to snap a pic, they can. And you and your staff can see all of it in real time.

BodySite’s food tracker further enhances compliance, patient engagement and guidance. There are many great features throughout the food tracking and meal building functions, but here’s a quick overview of the most important features that your patients can take advantage of. 

BodySite’s Food Tracker Has the Largest Food Database and Natural Language Search on the Web and App

The BodySite food search consists of nearly 631,000 grocery items, 137,000 restaurant items and 26,000 common foods with photos and user-friendly ordering of results. You can simply type in whatever you like, and we’ll find it. 

Patients Track Food in a Completely Intuitive Daily Tracking Interface for Easy Food Logging to Match the BodySite App

Your patients can easily add foods with the +Add Food prompt in each meal and then view your entire day at a glance, including macro breakdown to see percentages of each macronutrient consumed so far. They can also use the bar code food scanner on the app to track their foods. This includes a net carb calculator and a nutrition facts label for the daily consumption. Quick tools can be used to create a saved meal from the foods already tracked or to delete all foods in a meal. Patients can also view recent foods, favorite foods and saved meals when adding food to make tracking of frequently tracked foods a breeze. 

Patients can also view the same macro breakdown for each meal where food is tracked with a quick view of what foods are already in that meal, along with the same macro breakdown for each food too.

If your patients are following recipes included in their care plan and don’t need to manually add food, they can also track it simply by selecting the “Track This” button next to a recipe on their care plan. 

No matter how they choose to track their food, it’s just that easy. 

Calorie Goal – Set Manually or Calculate Automatically 

Not everyone wants to count calories or set a calorie goal, but it should be easy to do if someone wants to. Using the updated Harris Benedict calculation, we can calculate the calorie goal based on age, sex, height and weight or patients can override it and set their own calorie goal both on the web and in the app.

These are just some highlighted features of our food tracker; patients also have the ability to create their own foods, set macro goals and compare it to actual consumption, create meals, and build, store, and track recipes. 

BodySite’s food tracker is also very simple to use on the app. Patients can easily take advantage of these same features even when they’re on the go. The video below demonstrates just how easy it is for your patients.  

Why Should You Encourage Patients to Track their Food? 

Encouraging your patients to track their food intake can provide many benefits for them and can help in achieving their health and lifestyle goals. For one, food tracking may increase mindful eating, which means being fully attentive to food — as it is bought, prepared, served, and consumed. Tracking their food allows them to remain mindful of everything they’re eating during every meal.

Mindful eating also leads to them gaining a better understanding of their eating habits. This information is important for them to know if they’re trying to reach their nutrition goals. By tracking their food, your patients will be able to watch and balance their calories, macronutrients, and the sources they’re coming from. They will also be able to hold themselves accountable by being aware of their daily calories and comparing it to their calorie goals. 

Tracking food can also help your patients to better plan the food they’ll be eating ahead of time. By knowing their goals for calories and nutrients they should consume, they can use the food tracker to log the foods in advance in order to see if those foods allow them to meet their goals or not and adjust accordingly. If you want to help patients with food tracking, feel free to share this video with them which walks them through the whole process beginning to end.

How Can Food Tracking Assist Providers? 

When your patients are regularly tracking their food intake, they’re not the only ones benefitting from it. Monitoring their food can assist you in better guiding their care. Whether they’re tracking their food for you to monitor their progress while they’re on a diet plan or tracking it throughout their daily lifestyle in order for you to get a better idea of their needs, food tracking will help you gain a great understanding of how to take better care of each individual patient. 

Being able to access your patient’s food tracking data will allow you to provide better diagnoses and the opportunity to personalize their treatment as much as possible. Fortunately, BodySite’s food tracker allows you to easily follow along with the eating habits of your patients. Once you’ve come to a better understanding of their needs and an idea of a care plan that would work for them, we have 60+ remote care programs to choose from that are all customizable using our content management system, if you choose to modify the program.

Say you have a patient that you’ve noticed has a hard time reaching their calorie goal of around 2200 calories each day due to their eating habits. You could assign them to the 2200 Calorie Diet for Life Plan in order to help them reach that goal using daily recipes, tasks, motivation, and easy communication. 

If you’re looking for a HIPAA-compliant telehealth solution that allows your patients a simple way of food tracking and lets you easily watch the food intake of your patients, check out BodySite.com. If you’re not already using BodySite, click here to claim your 30-day free trial.

 

SOURCES:

1. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/8-steps-to-mindful-eating 

2. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/benefits_of_tracking_your_food_intake