Supertracking the New Year

First and foremost I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I’ll admit that I spent a large portion of my time off sitting on the couch watching TV and eating refined carbs. Since I decided to let my diet and exercise routine go a little bit (okay, maybe a lot) and with the New Year here, I’m going to jump on the New Year’s Resolution bandwagon and get myself back into a healthy routine. The only problem with that is that there are so many things that I want to improve:

• Consistently eat well every day
• Drink more water
• Exercise more
• Get more organized

It’s a well-known fact that when making changes you should make goals attainable and only have one or two at a time. It looks like my plan to get back on track is a big undertaking to say the least.

This morning we held the Joint Class Day with several other intern classes in Maryland and Northern Virginia at the National Agricultural Library (NAL). We got to learn about nutrition informatics, the shift towards electronic health records, and just a smidge of what the NAL has to offer in terms of nutrition education materials. During lunch I even got to try on this suit that simulates twenty extra pounds in fat.

Our second presenter, a representative with the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP), told us about a tool that I think will help me reach my goals (without overwhelming me too much!): USDA’s “Supertracker” at choosemyplate.gov. Everything that I want to do is offered on this website. And for free! CNPP made the Supertracker as user-friendly as possible and provided these six tabs to help you get started:
• Food-A-Pedia – To look up various foods
• Food Tracker
• Physical Activity Tracker
• My Weight Manager
• My Top Five Goals (And you can’t have any more!)
• My Reports

With a fresh start to the New Year and a new, easy and free online tracking system I’m thinking this will be easier than I thought. Special thanks to CNPP for coming to our Joint Class Day! I can’t wait to use this new tool!

Until next time,
Marion