A good way to find out how much you're eating everyday is to use a food journal. What you keep track of is really up to you, from every bite to just a general discription. The bottom line is that if you don't know exactly what you are putting into your body you won't know where to make the changes in your diet.

Recent studies have showed that keeping your entries simple is just as effective as tracking every calorie, carb or gram of fat.

A regular notebook will do the job. You can use something simple like the following structure.

Online Tracking Software

If you perfer you can sign up for a number of online food and exersice tracking programs. Most tracking software comes with great chart/graph features that allow you to see how many calories, protein, fat and carbohydrate grams your consuming. plus a whole host of other vitamins and minerals.

Some of the better ones are listed below.

www.sparkpeople.com - My Top Pick - Sparkpeople is so much more then just a food journal. They have great tracking tools as well as recipies, meal plans and fitness experts. You can create your own "Spark page" which is your personal weightloss profile/blog. But what really sets them apart are "sparkpoints" which you collect for reaching your exercise goal, trying new recipies etc. and the community where you can create teams of members with similar goals. ie novice runners club, 20LBS to lose clubs ect..

www.fitday.com - One of the largest and most popular sites with over 2 Million users. Fitday lets you track all your food and exercise data, set goals for yourself and has a personal diet journal that you can write about how you felt on a particular day. The online version is 100% free. There is a $29.95 fee if you want to buy the software. which has more features, charts and indepth analysis etc..

www.nutridiary.com - Another free online food and exercise diary. This is similar to Fitday, lots of charts, data and goal setting features. Plus they have an online forum where you can chat and leave messages for others nutridiary members.

www.my-calorie-counter.com - A decent site with some good tracking tools. This site also has a forum as well as your own personal weightloss blog. Again this is a free site and is rapidly gaining in popularity.