Restaurant Nutrition App: Keep Your Dieting Goals While Dining Out

Restaurant Nutrition App

Platform: iPhone

Version: 1.47.5

Developer:  Foundation Surgery Affiliates

Fee: Free

This app is great for watching what you eat, while dining out at a restaurant. You can search over 115 popular restaurants nationwide and take a peak at the nutrition facts of the food items on their menus. The Restaurant Nutrition app is useful for when you already know the restaurant you will be dining, or if you are looking for a restaurant.

This app is also a great companion for those who have food allergies, by providing information on what item on the menu could be hazardous. You can also filter the food items by your desired diet determiner: carbs, calories, fat, etc. Just click on the magnifying glass in the bottom right hand corner. Looking at the Search image on the left, you can take a look at how this feature works. For example, you can search for foods that fit in your desired amount of calories for all restaurants, are just a certain one, and a menu category like dinner, salad dressings, desserts, etc.

When you find a restaurant that is compatible to your dieting goals, there is a search option to find the closest location near you. There is also a history tab to quickly look up a restaurant you visit often.  

This app I find to be incredibly valuable for health-conscious people like myself (well some of the time....). I love that it helps keep you informed about the food you put into your body. This app makes me muchappier. 

Click here to get this app now

Want a new iPod? Upgrade your old one at Toys R' Us

Check it out: click here.

Courtesy of CoolMomTech.com

Grocery iQ app for iPhone

There are so many great things about this app, that I could write a forever-long review about them, but I’ll just focus on my favorite things about the Grocery iQ app, and leave you to discover the rest of the greatness yourself.

The Grocery iQ app is the perfect tool to have when you are planning your next grocery visit. It not only helps you create and store your grocery lists, but you can also search for coupons, sort the list by different types of stores you shop at, and sort the lists by categories in the order in which you shop.

What I find most effective is to first search what coupons are out right now. I select the dollar sign tab, and instantly connect to coupons.com. There I search for what coupons I want. I then email them to myself, and can print them off from my computer. You also have the option to print directly from your phone.

The really innovated part is that once you select what coupons you want, it instantly saves those items on your list, and sorts them by category on your list. For example, if you selected a coupon for Huggies diapers, it instantly adds the coupon to your grocery list under the “Baby” category. Looking at the image below, the items on my list that are in blue are coupon items. I must say, this is an awesome feature! You then enter other items onto your list by tapping the plus sign on the top right-hand corner, and start typing in the search bar. The app pulls up suggestions of what you are looking for as you type in the name of the item.

After I created my grocery list, I then sorted the categories in the order I always go through the grocery store. With always having a two year old shopping with me, being quick and efficient is very important to me. When you pick up the item and put it in your cart, you just tap in the white box next to the item and a check mark appears so you can find your place as you go down your list.

The app also has a barcode scanner, and the capability to save commonly bought items, like milk, eggs, bread, etc., in the favorites tab.

This is a great app, and I recommend it to all shoppers. This app makes me muchappier! 

Is the "Ask a Stylist" app the next best thing to having Joan Rivers in your pocket?

I stumbled upon the "Ask a Stylist" App for the iPhone, which was actually written about in an article by the Wall Street Journal online. In a nutshell, you can send a picture of an outfit or ask a question to send to a stylist, and receive feedback in minutes on what you should wear, or their opinion about your outfit. I'm intrigued!

Also, it's free, which surprised me.

I just downloaded it and am playing around right now; I'm kind of shy about actually using it...

This would have been great to have when I was dress shopping for something to wear to a wedding a week ago. It was just me and my two year old daughter shopping (she thinks all dresses are pretty :) ).

Has anyone tried it out? Let me know what you think. I'll provide my feedback soon when I actually try it.

My 2 Year Old Loves This App!

I love it too because I see how much she adores it, and well, I love to color too….who doesn’t?

This app is fun and kinda funny. When you enter the app, you are greeted to some snazzy music that I couldn’t help but sway to a bit. You get a choice of two different coloring books to enter: Ocean Creatures and Farm Animals (They each have different tunes). If you don’t care for the music, you can mute it by pressing the button with the music note on it in the bottom right-hand corner.

 

Next scroll through the different pages to color, and select one. Glide the color choices and pick out what color you want to start off with. Then just tap what area you want to color. It’s really easy and to my surprise, it isn’t tedious to color in small objects. It’s kind of like the paint bucket tool on Paint, but more intuitive, I think. I haven’t experienced many moments when I got frustrated when wanting to color in one area, and instead it colors in another. One drawback however, is that there isn’t an “undo” button to quickly go back if you make a mistake, but hey it’s coloring, not homework.

 

You can also save your work, or easily go back to the menu page to select another page to color. The real feature that wins it for me is that it animates your coloring. Just select the arrow button to “play” your drawing, and watch it come to life. My daughter just giggles away every time she pushes it, and it made me laugh the first I tried it too.

It’s fun. It’s cheap, and it’s also a great distraction when you need to occupy your young child for a few minutes. It also didn’t take my daughter long at all to figure out the buttons, so I would say kids as young as two would enjoy it, and adults too!

Be Green This Halloween - National Costume Swap Day

Be green and save money by participating in the National Costume Swap Day. Check to see if a swap is being held in your area on Saturday, October 9th. Not one in your area, register for a swap. Check it out: http://www.greenhalloween.org/CostumeSwap/find.html

Best Apps for Busy Homemakers on Blackberry

I also found this article on the "Best Apps for Busy Homemakers" who use Blackberry: http://su.pr/1gyPt9

More Time Moms Family Meals

Looking into the app More Time Moms by Family Meals for the iPhone 3g/g4, iPods, and iPads.

It provides a menu for every day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or just dinner if you prefer) for up to six weeks. Then it gives you a weekly grocery list for the items. Seems really useful when your house has no food, but you have no inspiration on what to get to make for dinners. I think it would be pretty easy to substitute a meal or ingredient out for something you know your family will enjoy better.

The only drawback is that it doesn't provide free recipes on how to prepare the menu and grocery items it provides; it would have been nice to have it all tied together, but I guess you've got to make money somewhere so I understand. Coming soon is the recipe book you can purchase on the ipad or as an ebook for $19.99. However, that doesn't discourage me, because you can easily avoid the cost and just Google the menu for recipes online. Or you could give back to the app if you found it helpful by purchasing the cookbook, plus 5% of all profits go to children's charities which is great.

Still trying it out, and will give it a whirl at the grocery store tomorrow. I'll let you know how it fits budget wise too. Leave me feedback if you've used it.

Here's the website to learn more: http://www.moretimemoms.com/

Hi!

There are a bazillion apps out there and I don't know about you, but I really don't care about all the mind numbing, make your eyes cross, silly games there are to download to your phone. Quite frankly, I don't have the time for that...I'm a mother of a nearly 2 year old, and a wife. I recently quit my job in Marketing to stay at home with my daughter, and work from home on a website with my husband called muchappier.com.

In conference calls with our web developer, I admit that some of the conversation goes right over my head; I'm not very tech savvy in how to set up websites or the lingo used to describe them, but I love finding something helpful, useful, valuable, or maybe just plain funny, that I know other moms like me would really appreciate. So I am on a quest to bring to you specific app reviews that are especially great for moms.

I'm also about to start a community group with a large group of moms, and anything I learn that I feel is of value to relationships, parenting advice, or encouragement for wives, I'll gladly share.

Thanks for tuning in, and I look forward to sharing with all you moms!