She said plaintively

[resonant]

I've been having some digestive issues. My doctor thinks I may have developed an intolerance/sensitivity, because middle age is a wonderland. So it's important for me to track what I eat.

I downloaded an app. MoodBites, if you're curious. It's pretty good, but ...

I've never been treated for or diagnosed with an eating disorder. I don't usually say I have, or have had, an eating disorder. (I mean, usually it's enough to say, "I'm a woman in America.")

But I spent 23 of my first 30 years dieting, and if you'd asked five-year-old me to describe her best friend she would have said, "She's prettier than me because she's thin," and I'm aware that my relationship with food and eating is a very thin piece of balsa wood laid gently on top of a writhing mass of rotting pumpkin guts.

And tracking what I eat is making me very, very unhappy.

I can tell that the designers of the app are trying to make it usable even to people who have this issue. You can't enter quantities at all. You can see that you've recorded yogurt three times but you can't see a list of what you've eaten today. They're doing their best. And I do need the information.

But it sucks, and I want to complain.

Comments

[ride_4ever]

I have done various forms of food-tracking many times in my life, and because I actually enjoy tracking, maybe I'm not the best respondent here, and also, since my food-tracking days go back to the 1970s and I have never used any form of online tracking, what I would have to say may look terribly old-fashioned here in the very techy 21st century.

Shall I go on or no?

[resonant]

Sure! I have to admit it's very appealing to the same part of me that enjoys those games where you have to assemble a complete set of objects. If it were anything but food it would be all kinds of fun.

[ride_4ever]

Of the various food tracking systems I've used over decades, the one I liked best was Richard Simmons Deal-A-Meal. I liked how the cards with the food equivalents and the listed portion sizes made for both a physical experience (handling and moving the cards) and a conceptual one (describing what portion was meant by "a serving" and how many servings of each food group to have each day).

[resonant]

Ah - yeah, OK, can't do this. I need to record what ingredients I eat and what symptoms I have, but I really can't do any eat-less-of-this or eat-more-of-this outside the very limited context of don't-eat-this-unless-you-want-intestinal-cramps.

[ride_4ever]

Hmmm...sounds like you need to create a personalized food journal (I've done that too).

[azurelunatic]

The route-around that I've occasionally been able to do is drawing pictures of some of the components of my meals. That engages the art project section of my brain rather than the one that's got all the red and black striped tape wrapped around it.

My sympathies.