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How to track your meals
Food features are among the most used functions in the app. As food has a strong impact on blood glucose and blood pressure, patients have many questions about what to eat— and the relationship between “what you eat” and “how you feel” can be especially powerful for people with chronic conditions.
Fortunately, your meal choices are something you can manage and the information about those choices is something your care team can use to give you better care. They’re always trying to individualize your meal plan, and understanding your food choices helps with food education and medication adjustment.
Also, many of us have poor recall when it comes to remembering what we’ve eaten, but with the BlueStar® app there are three easy ways to enter your food consumption:
- Searching our database
- Scanning a barcode
- Taking a photo
Quick Tips
- For optimal results, track your meals and snacks every day.
- The more data you capture, the better you and your care team can track and understand your health.
- Add notes to your food entries.
- No note is too small. How are you feeling? Tired? Energetic? Is anything bothering you? It’s all useful health information for your care team.
- Notes can be shared regularly with your care team. They’ll also be provided with the data in the SMART Visit Report™.
- The more notes you include, the better you and your care team can track and understand your health.
- Consider adding notes at the same time you’re recording other health data — to keep everything easy, simple, and consistent.
Where to begin?
The first thing you can do is keep a record of what you eat.
Bluestar helps you do that in a few ways:
- Enter your meals in the Food Diary and access nutrition information from our database.
- Take a photo of your food and allow our food recognition software to record your meals for you.
Not sure where to eat? Look up restaurants with the Restaurant Helper and find entrees within your desired carbohydrate range.
Do you get motivated when you see your progress before you achieve it? Create meal plans up to four weeks in advance.
Do you have problems organizing your grocery list? Export your meal plan into a categorized grocery list.
You’ve spent time organizing, but you’re still concerned that your disciplined list could come undone at the store. Why not order your groceries online through BlueStar and let them help keep you on track.
The BlueStar approach to food and nutrition management is supported by three pillars: Awareness, Understanding and Behavioral Optimization. Each provides features to assist you in making informed choices to improve your health.
The first, Awareness, contains a robust set of features that deliver education and content related to meal plans, including multicultural foods. These include:
- Educational videos that can help you manage portion sizes
- Healthy recipes for any meal of the day
- The Restaurant Helper function to locate nutritious meals no matter where you are
- A Food Diary—a meal tracking service where you can manually enter or upload photos of what you eat so you always stay on track
The next, Understanding, uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to crunch nutrition data to deliver real-time coaching messages and weekly insights to better understand what you put into your body.
- Real-time feedback helps you make good choices when
selecting what to eat - Weekly insights and trends allow you to effectively make long-term changes to your meal plans
- Courses designed by nutrition experts provide guidance for healthy eating behaviors
- Carbohydrate, sodium, calorie and fats Target-to-Intake indicators makes sure your personal progress stays at the forefront
Lastly, Behavior Optimization makes it easier for people living with chronic conditions to take informed action without leaving the platform.
- Our meal planner and recipes will get you inspired to stay healthy
- The grocery list feature will ensure you stay organized
- The online shopping option is not only convenient, but it also helps you stay on track with your goals
- Smart food choices are essential for managing your chronic conditions and BlueStar has plenty of suggestions
