How to Keep Tracking When You're Short on Time

Sometimes it seems like no matter how hard we try, we’re still short on time. There are only so many hours in a day and the laundry list of things we have to accomplish never gets shorter does it? So, how do you manage to prioritize tracking your food intake amidst your usual everyday chaos? We’ve got some ideas.

1. Plan ahead

A little forethought can go a very long way. If you’ve planned your meals ahead of time, you can create a shopping list before ever stepping foot in the grocery store. If you already know what you’re going to eat for the majority of your meals for the week, this makes tracking a breeze! The iTrackBites app makes the planning ahead process easy by allowing you to find, save and share recipes all in the same place.

2. Have a backup plan

We all know even the best-laid plans often go awry. Maybe you got to work and realized you forgot your strategically packed lunch sitting on the counter. Or let’s face it, you simply didn’t plan ahead and your lunches this week are going to find you at various take-out counters near your office. It’s okay, we can work with this.Make a note on your phone of the restaurants you know you always head to in a pinch. For each restaurant, note which menu items you can eat. The iTrackBites restaurant guide has an extensive fast food list to help take the guesswork out of this process for you. For Keto followers, we’ve already broken down the macros in our blogs here, making choosing healthier options a breeze and plugging them into your tracker even easier!

3. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify!

I don’t know about you, but I tend to eat the same things repeatedly for weeks at a time. It’s not the most exciting diet in the world, but it makes my life a whole lot easier. Simple for you might mean eating the same foods over and over, it can also mean choosing recipes with very few ingredients. Fewer ingredients mean less prep time, cook time, and clean-up time. It also means fewer ingredients to track. This doesn't mean you eat less. You want to make sure you’re still eating a well-balanced diet packed with plenty of healthy fats, proteins, fruits, and vegetables, but not everything has to be so involved. A handful of nuts, berries, and veggie sticks can go a long way and is wildly easy to track in a pinch.There’s really no reason to stop tracking your food intake even when you’re in a hurry. Worst case scenario, have a piece of paper or a note in your phone where you jot down what you’ve eaten throughout the day so you can circle back later and enter everything into your Healthi App.