The holidays have come and gone and for me it's time to take off those extra pounds gained over the last couple of months; I have found a website that is very helpful and it's free so I'm not talking about losing " 's " as in British Pounds Sterling or stones as in the "family jewels" but the other more abundant and "less desirable" kind.

It's called The Daily Plate and it allows you to track what you're eating with a free online food diary. It has an enormous database with about every food known to man. And by man , I mean mankind --or just in case you demand even greater gender specificity--to all humankind. I only mention that because there are some members of the human family who chauvinistically believe that male members of the family only know two kinds of food: Meat and Potatoes, chicken wings and beer, hamburgers and soda, or fish and chips.

But The Daily Plate has foods known and eaten by both men and women. Pretty handy huh?

Here's how it works. You sit down for breakfast and eat some bacon and eggs with whole wheat toast. When you're finished just type in bacon and hundreds of brands will appear. Choose your brand, the number of pieces, servings, etc. and the time of day (or meal) and the calories are added to your total for the day. Not only does it add up the total calories but breaks down the amount of fat, cholesterol , sodium, etc and records it for you automatically. Perchance your food choice is not there? No problem. Click add to database and copy in the values on the back of the label. Your choice will be there the next time you or other members eat that food.

If you're at a fast food joint you can type in Big Mac and voila ! it is already there. So you can eat anywhere and even enter your food items on your phone.

Did you walk for an hour? Enter it. The Daily Plate automatically calculates the number of calories you burned during that process based on your height and weight then deducts those calories from your daily total.The exercise database is as impressive as the food database and it's all free. Think about all the quid you spent putting those pounds on. Why spend even more taking them off?

A couple of nights ago Phyllis and I took our granddaughter to our local Hibachi Grill. For you folks in Atlanta I think that chain is known as Hibachi Grits... Anyway, I had octopus among my choices. When we arrived home I thought, "I'm sure the Daily Plate won't have octopi listed among its food choices. But those squiggly little things were! So bon apptit!

http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/

updated by @harold-powell: 11/11/15 10:38:44PM