A lot can happen in 365 days. A lot. And while my life has been a wild ride the past 365 days (pregnancy, trips to Jamaica and Jersey, moving drama, potty-training a toddler, giving birth, figuring out this mom-of-two business), one thing has remained constant: I’ve journaled at MyFitnessPal every.single.day.

And I’m damn proud of it.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I’ve lost weight (I still have those 8 pre-baby pounds to lose) or that I eat all that great all the time (I don’t) … The important thing to share is I began using it after I was already pregnant with Ben and, in spite of being a busy gal, I never missed a day — not even the day I had him!  I go over my goal constantly and am far from a model MFP user … but I love the app.

For someone like me who loves accountability and following a program, MFP — which is free — is an awesome tool. I don’t follow it to the T (for example, it doesn’t take into account nursing calories — which Weight Watchers does — so I’ve made my mental goal about 300 calories a day more than MFP recommends) but I love using it as a guideline and to see how I’m doing nutrition-wise … which can be alarming when I see my daily sugar intake. Oops. And I love that a lot of my friends use it, too, as there’s strength and motivation in numbers.

Oddly enough, logging on to this app has never once led me to go backwards into my old over-exercising or restrictive habits. I can now view the numbers as just that: numbers. Stats. Data. And when you take it at face value, food journaling can be a really powerful practice. No longer an obsession, it’s just a fact of life: I do best when I’m journaling and aware of my intake. Because even if I go way over, I have the written evidence; a logical explanation for why I still have 8 pre-baby pounds to lose, for example 😉

I’ll get there … And in the meantime, I’m going to celebrate these 365 straight days of journaling!

How about you? Do you use My Fitness Pal or another food/fitness tracking app?