When dieting
for fat loss, it's CRITICAL you know how many
calories you're taking in each day.
This knowledge is
what allows you to adjust your food intake so
you can adjust as you need to and drop fat.
Without knowing
how many calories you're taking in, you're basically
guessing!
Speaking for myself,
I'm not a big fan of traditional calorie counting…weighing
individual pieces of food then going to a food
chart and trying to figure out exactly how many
calories or grams of carbs, protein or fats a
food contains.
I don't like doing
it (and I know I'm not alone) yet I know for a
fact that many people NEED that feedback of calorie
counting to know how much they're eating in order
to be successful with fat loss.
For me, the key
is calorie AWARENESS, not calorie counting. You
need to know how much you're eating in order to
get your best results. If you can gauge it yourself,
you're set! But if you CAN'T gauge it reasonably
accurately yourself, you NEED to count calories.
So
it was with great interest that I tested out a
product called the "EatSmart Nutrition Scale."
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The premise
of this scale is simple: instead just giving
you just a simple weight like most food
scales do when you put a piece of food on
them, this scale also CALCULATES the calories
AND nutrients in the food, too (like vitamins
and minerals)!
This saves
you the time and effort of digging through
food charts and busting out the calculator
to try and add things up yourself (which,
for me is the main thing holding me back
from doing it - I just don't have time!).
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The "EatSmart"
scale is basically a labor-saving device designed
to do all the adding and calculating FOR you.
So is this fancy
new scale effective for what it attempts to do?
Is it worth the price over and above what a normal
food scale costs? Let's find out!
How
The EatSmart Nutrition Scale Works
The operation of
the scale is really quite simple. You can take
an apple, set it right on the glass scale surface,
punch in the 3 digit code for apple (there are
999 food codes built into the product - it also
includes a printed list of all these codes), and
BAM, you get a readout showing calories, carbs,
fats, and other nutrients (vitamins, minerals,
that type of thing).
The best part is,
you're basing the calculations on the ACTUAL
piece of food you're weighing - this is not
a random, generic piece of chicken breast that
contains an average number of calories. This is
the chicken breast you're going to eat RIGHT NOW
and the scale calculates exactly how many calories
THIS piece of chicken has!
Another great feature
of this product is the ability to punch in the
nutritional information found on packages and
use THAT to calculate nutrition in the serving
you're about to eat.
Take a bowl of cereal,
for example. Want to know how many calories the
"normal" bowl of cereal you have in
the morning really has? Set the bowl on the scale
(set it to zero to remove bowl weight first),
pour in your cereal and enter the nutritional
info on the side of the box and up pops the full
nutritional profile on the ACTUAL serving you're
about to eat.
This will visually
SHOW you exactly how many calories are in YOUR
normal serving sizes, not what the serving size
is written on the box. This is a great feedback
tool and an eye-opener!
Now, in my experience
with the scale, all this was VERY easy to do.
If you can set stuff on a scale and push a couple
of buttons, you'll be able to handle this. It's
not like you push the wrong button and it slings
your mashed potatoes across the room or anything
like that.
The
Downsides of
the EatSmart Nutrition Scale
The downsides of
this scale are very few and very small compared
to the potential benefits of this product.
1. Cost - it's NOT a cheap scale, by any
stretch of the imagination. At a manufacturers-suggested
list price of $75, it's definitely at the top
end of food scale prices. That being said, it's
also definitely NOT your average food scale. It's
very solidly built and can support heavy food
items. And, of course, the digital calculation
functions of the scale are the main reason for
the increased cost.
I've ALSO arranged
for a special 10% discount coupon direct from
the manufacturer, which will bring that price
down even more (see the link below for that).
2. LCD Screen Can Be Hard To Read In Dim Lighting
- and I came up with a solution to this problem
on my own…put the scale in BRIGHT lighting.
Like I mentioned above, these are SMALL things.
3. Food Database Is Not Searchable - this
would only really be a problem if you lose the
booklet that contains the list of food codes (and
even then, it's posted on the EatSmart website
so you can print another one out any time). It
would be nice to have some sort of built-in search
feature (perhaps with a small keypad) where you
could type in the names of the foods instead of
having to find your food codes in the list.
On the flip-side,
incorporating this sort of "computer-like"
interface for the product would definitely increase
the cost of the scale and possibly make things
actually HARDER to find than a simple printed
manual (is hamburger under beef, ground beef or
burger?). Maybe somebody will find a way to hack
it into their iPhone…
You'll also find
as you repeat your food choices, you'll start
to get familiar with the food codes, committing
your more frequent food selections to memory.
Is
The EatSmart Nutrition Scale Effective?
Absolutely. In fact,
the beauty of the "EatSmart Nutrition Scale"
is NOT that it weighs your food and calculates
all the nutrients. That's what the product DOES.
It's what the
product TEACHES you that's so very valuable!
You see, as you
use the scale, you'll start to learn just
how many calories are actually IN the portions
that you're eating! And then you'll be able to
adjust your food intake accordingly.
This instant feedback
is INCREDIBLY valuable if you don't instinctively
have awareness of how many calories are in your
normal serving sizes. Most people either overestimate
calories in foods and eat too little or underestimate
calories and eat too much. BOTH have an impact
on fat loss.
Think of it this
way…with MOST nutrition and diet programs,
the only feedback you get is on the scale and
in the mirror. This is NOT accurate or instant
at all!
But when you put
an apple on the scale and it says "127 calories,"
you know EXACTLY what that means for your diet.
Heck, I put an entire
pizza on the scale and it started smoking, lights
started flashing and sirens went off. And we all
know what THAT means for the diet…
Bottom line,
this is an EXCELLENT tool for gauging caloric
intake and one that I, even not being keen on
calorie-counting as I am, found to be quite useful.
To quote Homer Simpson,
"It teaches you while you learn."
Soon, with that
constant and instant feedback, you'll have AWARENESS
of how many calories are in any given food you're
eating, especially those you're familiar with.
And you'll be able to adjust your diet accordingly,
right there on the spot, to meet your fat-loss
goals.
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For more information
about the "EatSmart Nutrition Scale"
(and to get your 10% discount on the scale) check
out the manufacturer's website at the following
link:
http://www.eatsmartproducts.com/coupon/nicksentme
The coupon code
"NICKSENTME" will also work during
checkout, if you don't see it come up in the shopping
cart.
NOTE: The website
actually offers a demo video of somebody using
the scale, so you'll be able to SEE exactly how
easy it is to use.
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