How to Choose the Right Tools for Your Meals

Every job we do is easier if we have the right tools. When I started doing Atkins I was very diligent in my menu planning to make sure that I was going to be able to keep within my carb limit. However, menu planning is only the first step. Next, we must actually eat our food, and often we have very misguided ideas of what a portion really is.

I have found several handy tools that really help me make a difference:

1) Measuring cups and spoons - these sound boring, I know, but they are very effective in letting us see what a cup of lettuce or a tablespoon of dressing REALLY looks like, not just what I think it looks like.

2) Kitchen scale - I have found this to be an awesome help for those foods that are either hard to measure by size, or that it's hard to find the carb count listed by cups. I love my Starfrit Electronic Kitchen Scale, but any good scale will do. The features I found most important to have include:

a) digital display - much easier to get an accurate reading that scales with a needle

b) zero button - this button lets me put a plate or bowl on top to keep my scale clean and then reset the scale to zero so I can start weighing; it also lets me measure one ingredient then add another without having to empty my bowl between ingredients

c) ability to switch units - if you find carb counts for one thing in ounces and another in grams, it's nice not to have to do the math in your head

d) reasonably high total weigh ability - my scale holds 5 kg; I used to have one that only held 1 lb. and I remember I was forever maxing it out. What a pain!

3) The final tool I am sharing today is an app I found called Carb Diet. This great little app keeps track of my carbs, protein, fat, water, exercise, and weight. It also has a database of thousands of food items and hundreds of restaurants, plus it allows me to customize entries for other foods I buy and for recipes I make. This app has made keeping track of my food intake SO easy!

What tools have helped make your menu planning and food tracking easier?