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What is the Healthy Living Tracker?

The Healthy Living Tracker is a new tool designed to help you quickly and easily keep track of your daily eating and exercise habits. Once you have completed the registration process, you will see your personal Totals allowance. Totals values are values given to foods based not only on the nutrition content of a food but also on the type of food and its importance in a healthy diet. Fruit and vegetables, for example, are key in any healthy eating plan so they are calculated to have low Totals Values. Unhealthier choices – those foods high in saturated fat, refined carbohydrate or salt, for example, are designed to have higher Totals Values than alternatives that might be higher in unsaturated fat or whole grain carbs, or lower in salt.

Enter what you eat and drink and the activity you take into the Tracker and it will tally your Totals intake for the day, re-calculate your allowance to account for any exercise you have taken and show you clearly how well you’re doing in reaching your goals!

Who can use the Healthy Living Tracker?

Most people over the age of 18 can use the Tracker.

During pregnancy, our nutritional requirements change and the Tracker is not designed to address these requirements, so we regret that pregnant women or women who are breastfeeding a child as it’s sole source of nutrition cannot use the Tracker

If you have a medical condition that is affected by diet, we recommend that you consult with your doctor before joining this, or any other, nutrition plan. Our plans are not designed to treat medical conditions and using the Healthy Living Tracker does not replace medical advice. If you are unsure if the plan is suitable for you, please contact our nutrition team on nutrition@tescodiets.com before registering with us.

How to use the Healthy Living Tracker

The Tracker will show you your own Totals allowance, both by day and by week. When you enter food you have eaten and the exercise you have taken, the Tracker will calculate how many Totals you have used, how many you have earned and how many remain. You can enter food and exercise details either in retrospect or in advance, or you can update your details throughout the day if you prefer.

GDAs & the Tracker

A Totals Values are calculated using a system developed by the nutrition team at Tesco Diets. Totals Values take the nutritive value of a food as well as the importance of that food in a healthy diet into account. In this way, smart choices are rewarded as healthier options have relatively lower Totals values than unhealthier alternatives. This means that when you make healthy choices, you’ll enjoy a nutritious and satisfying diet.

But what are those healthier choices? Based on the Totals food pyramid and healthy eating guidelines, fruit and vegetables are strongly encouraged in this plan. Whole grain carbohydrates are preferred over refined carbs and unsaturated fats are encouraged instead of foods high in saturated fat. High salt and sugar options are discouraged and foods which can actively promote health are promoted with lower Totals values.

Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) are a guide to the amounts of calories, sugar, fat, saturated fat and salt you should try not to exceed every day to have a healthy balanced diet.

GDAs for a typical adult are Calories 2000 kcal, Sugar 90g, Fat 70g, Saturated fat 20g, Salt 6g.

Remember that GDAs are only guidelines, not targets. They’re not the same for everyone. For example, they’re higher for active men and lower for inactive women and children.

How to register

As your own Totals allowance is based on your weight, height, gender and activity, you need to register these details with us before using the Healthy Living Tracker. Through the registration page, you can also let us know if you prefer to use imperial or metric measurements and if you have any medical conditions that are affected by diet.

Our plans are not designed to treat medical conditions and using the Healthy Living Tracker does not replace medical advice. If you are unsure if the plan is suitable for you, please contact our nutrition team on nutrition@tescodiets.com before registering with us.

How to navigate the Healthy Living Tracker

The Tracker has easy-to-use navigation tabs along the top of the page:

Home

My Profile – in this section, you can update your personal details (My Details) and see how you are going in reaching your goals (My Progress).

Tracker – use this section to enter your foods, meals and exercise

Portion sizes – a quick guide to usual serving sizes for commonly eaten foods

Help – your guide to using the Tracker and Frequently Asked Questions

Logout

My profile

There are 2 sections under this tab: My Details and My Progress:

My Details – this page enables you to update the personal details you initially registered with, such as your email address.

My Progress – here you can record and view your progress, including your BMI, weight and waist measurements. At the bottom of the page, you can update your weight and waist measurements. We recommend that you weigh-in no more than once per week.

Tracker

Click on the tab in the top navigation bar to access the Tracker tool. Within this section, there are 6 tabs:

Foods – use this area to enter foods you have eaten or plan to eat

Meals – choose from popular meals or enter meals you often eat

Exercise – track the activity you have taken to earn Totals

Favourites – use this section to list foods you often eat so you can find them quickly and easily

My Usuals – if you tend to eat the same meals regularly, you can note these here. For example, if you eat the same breakfast Monday to Friday, enter that in the My usuals section and this meal will be completed automatically in your Tracker.

Daily summary – this section gives you an overview of all your foods for the day. You can also record your intake of fruit, veg, water, alcohol and treats, your mood tracker and your nutritional summary for the day. At the bottom of the page, you can see your weekly summary and you can manage your Totals allowance for the week here.

Using the food tab on the Tracker

To add a food into your Tracker, find the particular food in the database, update the portion size and quantity as necessary and then select at which meal you ate, or plan to eat, the food.

There are 2 ways to find foods:

Search

Enter the name of the food or the last 6 digits of the food’s bar code into the search box and click on Go.

To refine this search, you can then click on the supermarket aisle where the food would be found and then the shelf, if you wish.

Example: type ‘rice’ into the search box and press go. This will return all foods with ‘rice’ in their name. To find rice crispies, refine your search by selecting the Breakfast cereal aisle and, if you wish, the Everyday cereal shelf. Cereals with ‘rice’ in their name will be shown at the top of the list.

Browse

Click the Meals tab in the navigation bar and you will see the various supermarket aisles, such as Meat, fish and poultry, Cooking ingredients and Frozen ready meals. Click on the aisle you are interested in to browse the shelves in that aisle, then click on the name of the food.

When you have found the food you have eaten (or plan to eat), click on the name of that food, and update the portion size and quantity of food as necessary.

Portion size refers to the usual serving size for that food. For example, a slice of bread has a usual portion size of around 35g and, where a standard serving size applies, this information will be automatically completed for you.

Quantity refers to how many items you have eaten. If you have eaten 2 slices of bread, for example, the portion size of 35g will be completed automatically and you can update the Quantity figure to 2.

When you have updated the amount of food eaten, the nutrition and GDA information for that serving will be displayed, along with the Totals value of that serving. Tick which day of the week you’d like to add that food to (you can select more than one), show the meal and click on Add. This enters the food serving into the appropriate meal in the table below.

Continue adding foods to complete your daily intake.

To delete a food, click on the trash can symbol.

To edit or update a food, click on the tool symbol.

To add the food to your favourites list, click on the star symbol.

Using the Meals tab on the Tracker

Entering meals into your Tracker - as opposed to individual food items - makes it quicker and easier to add meals that you eat frequently. You can either select one of the Popular Meals already available or you can create your own meals through the Manage My Meals tab.

To enter a new meal, add the name of that meal into the New meal name box in Create meal panel, select the appropriate meal occasion (breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack) and click Create. Enter foods into your meal in the same way as you add food items to your Tracker, search by name or bar code, or browsing the aisles.

How to Manage and Edit my meals

Use this section to enter favourite meals or meals that you eat often – this means in future you can enter the entire meal instead of listing food ingredients individually.

To enter a new meal, add the name of that meal into the New meal name box in Create meal panel, select the appropriate meal occasion (breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack) and click Create. Enter foods into your meal in the same way as you add food items to your Tracker, search by name or bar code, or browsing the aisles.

Using the Exercise tab on the Tracker

To add an activity into your Tracker, browse through the exercise categories to find the most appropriate exercise. The exercises currently included in our database are:

Bike activities: cycling (light, moderate and vigorous effort, stationary cycling)

Everyday activities: dancing, gardening, house cleaning, lawn mowing

Gym activities: aerobics (low and high impact, general), circuit training, gymnastics, exercises using gym equipment such as the treadmill or elliptical trainer, martial arts, skipping, stretching exercise (such as pilates and yoga), tai chi, toning exercises (such as sit-ups and lunges), trampolining and weight training

Sports: badminton, basketball, bowling, cricket, fencing, fishing, football, golf, hockey, horse-riding, ice-skating, netball, roller skating, rugby, skiing, squash, table tennis, tennis and volleyball

Walking and running: backpacking or hiking, jogging, walking

Water activities: aqua aerobics, canoeing, sailing, swimming

Then enter the time (in minutes) that you have spent doing that form of exercise and the relevant Totals value will be calculated. This will be added to your daily food allowance but to ensure you meet your weight loss - healthy eating goals, the number of Totals you can earn from exercise is limited.

Using the Daily Summary tab on the Tracker

The Daily Summary page gives you an overview of your day. At the top of the page, the foods you have entered for that day are displayed, along with the exercise you have taken. Below this, the Daily Tally box shows how you are getting on with reaching your 5-a-day portions of fruit & veg and 8 glasses of water, and also lets you see if you’re staying below the alcohol and treat recommendations.

Can you please explain my Daily Summary table?

Your Daily Summary table shows your actual intake compared to recommendations. These recommendations are based on your personal calorie requirements, which is why these differ slightly from the GDA values elsewhere as GDAs are based on typical adult intakes.

The first column shows your actual intake of calories and various nutrients.

The second column shows recommended intakes based on your own requirements. Because fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar and protein all provide calories, it can be helpful to know what proportion of your calories are supplied by these nutrients - this is a common way for health professionals to look at the overall energy balance in a diet, so their recommended intake levels are shown as gram values and as a percentage of energy intake. Fat should supply no more than 30% of your daily energy, with no more than 10% of that being from saturated fat; carbohydrate should provide around 50% of your daily energy intake with no more than 10% of this coming from sugar; protein usually provides around 20% of daily calories.

The final column shows your actual intake compared as a percentage of your recommended intake.

Using the Favourites tab on the Tracker

The Favourites section of the Tracker has 4 areas: an overview page and a page for each foods, meals and exercise.

The main overview page allows you to add foods or activity to your daily Tracker that you have previously marked as Favourites. Simply click on the name of the food, meal or exercise, update the portion, quantity or duration and this will be entered into your Tracker.

You can indicate Favourites through the Manage foods, Manage meals and Manage exercise areas. Use the search or browse facilities under these tabs in just the same way as the corresponding tabs within the Tracker (by using the Search boxes at the top of the page or Browsing categories) and the table at the bottom of the page (with the red heading) will show your list of favourite foods, meals and activities.

You can also indicate Favourites directly from your Tracker. To do this, click on the star icon beside that food, meal or activity.

To enter a Favourite food, meal or activity into your Tracker, click on the Favourite tab to go to the Favourites area and select the appropriate item.

Using the My Usuals tab on the Tracker

Clicking on the My Usuals heading brings you to an overview page showing all the foods, meals and exercises you have entered into your schedule.

To add a food to your schedule, go into the Manage food items section. Find the food by browsing the food aisles and update portion size and quantity in the box to the right of the page. Using the check boxes, indicate the days on which you have this particular food and the meal at which you have this food.

To add a meal to your schedule, go into the Manage meal section. Select a meal from either our list of Popular meals or your own My Meals list and then check to indicate the days on which you have this meal.

To add an exercise to your schedule, go into the Manage exercise section. Select an exercise from one of the categories given, update the duration of activity and then check to indicate the days on which you take that activity.

How to manage your Totals Allowance

You can change your Totals allowance from day to day to account for special occasions, meals out and times when you’ve gone over budget! To change your Totals allowance for a particular day, use the ‘up’ or ‘down’ arrows below that day and then use the arrows below other days of the week to account for that change. For example, if you are planning a meal out on Friday, increase your Totals allowance for Friday and decrease your allowance for the other days to make up the difference.

To ensure a healthy diet, you do need a certain number of Totals every day (if you’re trying to lose weight, remember that cutting back on calories too severely will actually hinder, not help, your weight loss in the longer term).

What is my Daily Tally?

The Daily Tally box allows you to update your intake of water, fruit & vegetables and alcohol, to help you see when you meet recommendation. So each time you finish a glass of water, click on the glass icon; when you eat a fruit or vegetable portion (a portion of fruit is generally 1 medium-sized piece such as an apple or 2 smaller fruit such as 2 plums, a vegetable portion is 80g), click on the carrot symbol and when you have an alcoholic drink, click on the wine glass icon. It’s recommended for men to regularly drink no more than 3-4 units of alcohol daily or 2-3 units daily for women. When trying to lose weight or follow a healthy eating plan, we recommend limiting your alcohol intake to less than 2 units per day - half a pint of beer or cider, a measure of spirits of a 125ml glass of wine are all equivalent to one unit of alcohol. Your targets for water and fruit & vegetables are minimum targets but remember that the 2 units of alcohol per day is a recommendation.

Can you explain my daily summary, please?

The Daily Summary page gives you an overview of your day. At the top of the page, the foods you have entered for that day are displayed, along with the exercise you have taken. Below this, the Daily Tally box shows how you are getting on with reaching your 5-a-day portions of fruit & veg and 6-8 glasses of water, and also lets you see if you’re staying below the alcohol and treat recommendations. Remember:

Water – it’s recommended to drink 6-8 glasses of water everyday. Use these icons to mark how many glasses of water you have daily.

Treat – Treats are usually foods high in calories, sugar &/or fat with little other nutritive value. Use these icons to show how many treats such as sweets, fizzy drinks or biscuits you have each day!

Alcohol – It’s recommended for men to regularly drink no more than 3-4 units of alcohol daily or 2-3 units daily for women. When trying to lose weight or follow a healthy eating plan, we recommend limiting your alcohol intake to less than 2 units per day - half a pint of beer or cider, a measure of spirits of a 125ml glass of wine are all equivalent to one unit of alcohol.

The mood box allows you to indicate how you’re feeling – this is helpful as it can help you recognise how your mood affects your eating habits.

Your summary for today shows your actual intake compared to recommendations. The values shown in this table are based on your actual requirements for energy and certain nutrients (remember that GDA signposts as shown on the front of food products and in the item nutrition information box on the tracker are based on a typical adult).

Can you explain my weekly summary, please?

Your Weekly Summary gives as overview of your week so far and allows you to plan ahead.

At the start of the week, each day will be set to display your actual Totals allowance but the Manage your Totals Allowance box gives you flexibility to fit the plan into your life. So if you’re planning to go out for a meal on Friday, for example, you can increase your Totals allowance for Friday and decrease your Totals for the rest of the week to account for it – either lowering your allowance very slightly over a number of days or all on one day (subject to minimum daily intake).

What is the difference between My Favourites and My Usuals?

Adding foods, meals and activities to My favourites means that you can find these quickly and easily without have to search or browse the database again.

The My Usuals section allows you to add foods, meals or activities into a weekly calendar. Once you find foods you eat regularly, such as breakfast cereal with milk, you can indicate the days on which you have this food so you do not need to add this manually every day.

Contact Us

If you would like to make a comment about the Healthy Living Tracker, please use the contact form. One of our team may reply to you directly but commonly asked questions will be addressed here on the Help page.

Click here to access the contact form