Variety to your diet is key to a healthy lifestyle. However, sometimes we would like to know if our diet really does add up to give us the nutrients we need.

MyPyramid.Gov now has a “menu planner” feature (MyPyramid Tracker), that, once you’re logged in (for free), you can enter in what you eat for the day, or even week (and can do so for your family too!). It’s a great feature that lets you see if you have had enough vegetables, fruits, milk, grains and meat/meat substitutes each day/week.

Once you log into the site, it will ask for your height, weight, and amount of physical activity that you do each day. Then, it will give you a goal calorie level. Time to enter in what you ate! While you are entering these food items, it will show you how that food measures up to your MyPyramid goals (for example how that slice of pizza fits in to the grains, meats, and milk group).

Once you have entered in your data for the day, you can get a daily report or a weekly report, and then you can make one change to a food category. For example, if you chose to increase your vegetable intake, it will give you several choices to make from this. You then choose a goal to strive for (for example, by choosing that you want to increase your vegetable intake, it will tell you to “eat carrot sticks for lunch, buy frozen vegetables for easy side dishes, etc” and you can choose this goal and then track how many days of the week you made this change).

Once you have made a step towards a change in your diet, the program will save this information, and you can view any of the information you entered in at your next visit.

Check it out, and if you’re not convinced as to how it works, check out the Site Map! In my opinion, one of the drawbacks to the program is that the calorie goals are general, there is not an extensive list of foods to choose from, and the program does not automatically take you to your “suggested goals” once you log back in. But overall, it is a basic, and free, way to track your diet and see if you really are meeting the guidelines!