But what about eating out? And holidays? And special occasions? And parties? And every other similar situation that takes us out of our eating comfort zone?

How are we supposed to stick to our diet then?

Good question, and this article has an answer.

Check it out… Diet vs Life: How to Stick to Your Diet When Life Gets in the Way

First, a Calorie Counter is now on Twitter. If you happen to be down with Twitter, you can follow me here: http://twitter.com/aCalorieCounter

Second, after going live with the ability for you guys to create accounts and track your diet on a daily basis in December, I am pleased to announce that a Calorie Counter now has well over 10,000 registered users. Pretty sweet. And that number continues to grow significantly by the day.

Now for the stuff you guys will actually care about. I’ve gotten a nice amount of requests for new features you’d like to see on the site, and now a bunch of them are here and ready to be used. Let’s run down the list:

1. Frequently Eaten Foods
   Easily the most often requested feature I get. Now it’s here. Once you log in, you’ll now see a list of your most frequently eaten foods. This list will serve 2 purposes. First and most important, it allows you to quickly add the foods you eat most often without having to first go and search for them every single time. Now you can conveniently add them right from there. Second, it also serves as a way of showing you what foods you are (and are not) eating most often. So, if your list tends to be comprised mostly of junk, it’s a good sign that it’s probably time to make some improvements to your diet.
2. Daily Calorie Goal
   The second most often requested feature. When you log in and look at your diet’s total nutrition facts for the day, you’ll now see a little area right below this info where you can see and set your daily calorie goal and then be told exactly how much over or under that calorie goal you currently are. So, if you set a daily calorie goal of 2500, and you’ve eaten 2000 calories so far that day,  it will tell you that you can still eat 500 more calories. If you ate 3000, it would tell you that you’re already 500 calories over.
3. a Calorie Counter’s Diet Widget
   The third most often requested feature I get asked for is some way to put your diet info on your own site or blog. Well, now you can. Just log in and look under the “My Account” heading on the bottom right. Click the “Get Your Diet Widget!” link, and then follow the quick and simple instructions (just a matter of copying and pasting a small bit of code). You’ll then have your diet’s daily total nutrition facts showing right there on your own site or blog. And yes, it will update in real time.
4. A bunch of other little things.
   And then there are a few smaller things that you might not even notice. For example, the USDA’s database of foods that this site uses has been updated. Also, all of the dates on your calendar are now clickable, making it much easier for you to go back and edit days that you’ve never added any foods to before.

So, log in and go play with everything and let me know what you think. Still don’t have an account? Go get one already, it’s free.

Also, if you have any other ideas of any kind for ways to make a Calorie Counter even more awesome, let me know in the comments. Your suggestions (assuming they don’t suck) will very likely be part of the next batch of updates. So, talk to me. If you can think of anything that you wish a Calorie Counter had or just improved in some way… anything that would make this site as perfect as can be… I want to hear it!

Oh, and feel free to follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/aCalorieCounter

It gets a little repetitive after a while, doesn’t it? Yeah, I kinda figured.

So, I’ve decided to do something a little different. Instead of explaining how to get your body to do what you want it to do (been there, done that), I’m going to explain why it’s not currently happening. You know, why you’re failing to lose weight, or failing to build muscle.

Basically, I’ve come up with what I think are the 6 most common reasons for why your body isn’t doing what you want it to do.

Check it out: 6 Reasons Your Body Isn’t Doing What You Want It To Do

If you are having a problem reaching your goal (lose fat, build muscle, both), this article will tell you what your problem is… and how to fix it.

The same insanely quick, clutter-free and all around perfectly usable awesomeness you’ve come to love about a Calorie Counter’s nutrition search engine is now equally in effect in the form of a completely free food and diet log.

Just sign up for an account (takes about 3 seconds) and you’re good to go.

Then, just start searching for foods like you always have, only now be sure to add them to your daily “My Foods” diet log. There, you’ll be able to adjust the serving sizes of foods after they’ve been added, add and edit your own custom foods, and browse through and edit your diet from previous days.

Basically, you will now have the ability to quickly and easily keep track of the daily totals of your entire diet (calories, protein, carbs, fat and much more) in what I like to think is a format approximately 80 trillion times better than every other crappy version around. Yes, 80 trillion.

So, stop reading this and go check it out already…

Create your free a Calorie Counter account right here.

And, be sure to let me know what you think in the comments below or via email. Like it? Hate it? Have any suggestions for additional features you’d like to see? Whatever feedback you’ve got, I want to hear it.

Later.

During that time, big things have happened. For example, various parts of a Calorie Counter have been mentioned by the likes of Business Week, The Huffington Post, Lifehacker and other sites so big you’d think I was making it up. Equally cool is the fact that a whole bunch of schools are using this site as part of their health/nutrition courses. Pretty sweet again.

I’m also quite proud of the countless comments and emails I’ve gotten from you fine people letting me know how much weight you’ve lost, or how much muscle you’ve built, or how a Calorie Counter has in some way been of use to you. Thanks for letting me know. I’m glad the site could be of service.

Speaking of this site being of service… something is on its way soon that will actually make a Calorie Counter be of even more service. And, you’re going to like it. As soon as it’s ready to go, you’ll be the first person I tell, I promise.

That’s about it. Another year of extremely useful stuff is on the way. Stay tuned…

How is that possible, you ask? Well, as I’ve mention before (and mention again in the intro of this list), the FDA’s trans fat labeling guidelines are… idiotic. Seriously. That’s how it’s possible for a food to contain trans fat despite the fact that its label says it doesn’t.

To learn the full details of these guidelines and see which foods make the list, check out…

10 Surprising Foods That Contain Trans Fat

Know of any similar foods? Let me know in the comments and I’ll gladly add them to this list.

A couple of months ago I brought you The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide. Today, I am bringing an equally comprehensive guide into the world.

I’m calling it: The Ultimate Guide To Building Muscle

For those who can’t tell exactly what this is just by its self explanatory title, let its first paragraph serve as your description:

This is it, folks. This is the first, last and only article you will EVER need to read about building muscle. Only, this is much more than an article. This, my friends, is a guide. In fact, it’s the ultimate guide to building muscle. It’s a collection of every single thing you will ever need to know. Every helpful tip, every useful fact… it’s all here, compiled in one place, just for you.

If you have any interest in building muscle, this is literally EVERYTHING you could possibly need to know.

Enjoy…

Did you do it? Cool. Now, could any of them use any improving? If so, then I have the article for you.

It’s a very easy-to-understand guide to diet creation and healthy eating. It’s perfect for those who want to improve their weight, diet, nutrition and health but just don’t know where or how to begin.

It’s also quite useful for anyone who wants to see a chart containing the most important parts of every person’s diet along with

• A short description of what each is.
• What its role is in the human body.
• Recommendations for how much of each should be consumed per day.
• The most common food sources of each.

I call it The Beginner’s Guide To Diet, Nutrition & Healthy Eating

It’s what probably should have been the first article I wrote for this site. Of course, at that time I was much too busy with super important site related decisions like whether the “a” in “a Calorie Counter” should be lower case or capital.

With that decision now long gone, this guide is finally good to go. So… check it out.

Doing any weight training currently? Do your results suck?

Planning on starting weight training in the future? Want to prevent your results from sucking?

If you said “yeah” at least once, today is your lucky day. I just wrote up a list of the most common causes of sucky weight training results. And if anyone knows about that, it’s me. From about 2000 – 2002, “sucky results” was my middle name. Luckily for me, I was able to fix the causes of these not-so-great results and then legally have my middle name changed. And, guess what? I want to share what I learned.

Check it out: 8 Reasons Your Weight Training Results Suck

Questions? Feedback? Leave it in the comments.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that this is the week when millions of people around the world make their New Year’s Resolutions. I also mentioned that the #1 resolution may very well be to lose weight.

I then mentioned something that probably sounded a bit strange… that you should not spend a second of your time doing anything weight loss related. Don’t research. Don’t learn. Don’t buy. Whatever you do, don’t go out and look for weight loss. My reason for this of course was that I was going to “bring weight loss to you.”

And now, as promised, I present to you (I’m also a huge fan of overly dramatic introductions)…

The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide

As for a brief description, I’ll let its first paragraph do the describing:

This is it, folks. This is the first, last and only weight loss article you will EVER need to read. Only, this is much more than an article. This, my friends, is a guide. In fact, it’s the ultimate weight loss guide. It’s a collection of every single thing you will ever need to know about losing weight. Every helpful tip, every useful fact… it’s all here, compiled in one place, just for you.

If you need to lose weight, this is EVERYTHING you’ll need.

Oh, and Happy New Year!