I’ve been on a diet. And every dieter knows that to lose weight, you have to stay on top of your calories. You have to burn at least 3500 calories to shed off 1 pound of weight. So if you want to loose weight, you should know whether you’re taking in less or more calories than you burn.

Here’s one cool food diary freeware. I’ve been using it for quite a few weeks now, and I have to say I’m always on the dot in calorie intake. Food Diary (what an obvious name) keeps track of your consumption and checks this against your nutritional goals, whether it’s for weight loss or a balanced diet.

You start out by creating a profile that gets basic information like age, height, current and target weights. You can also choose which nutrients it’d keep track off. It features complete data of over 6000 food items provided by the USDA (which you can update, by the way). From there, it’s all about conscientiously(and honestly) updating it with what you’re eating.
Users may scoff at its quite unattractive interface but since it works, I have no problems about it. Here’s a longer list of its features.

It comes in a ZIP file with no installation required. Which means it’s a staple in my thumb drive. One issue though worth looking at, it hasn’t been updated for two years. It still runs beautifully on Windows XP though.

Download Food Diary here.