Lance Armstrong wants to turn you into a nutrition expert with a few clicks of your mouse. The Daily Plate, an online calorie-counter, food diary and nutrient tracker, is now operated by Livestrong.com, the website of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Despite a couple of drawbacks, this free tool is almost as awesome as Lance himself.

Once you register on the site, you can easily and quickly figure out a daily calorie allotment and enter the foods you eat. One you get this virtual food dairy going, the software tallies the exact calorie count and breaks it down by the basic nutrient analysis such as fat, cholesterol and sodium. The tool can also track your daily exercise and how many calories you’ve burned.

Here are our raves:

• We love the “challenge” aspect of the program. You can set a personal goal and get that herd mentality going by seeing how many others are also trying to meet the same goal. You’re suddenly part of a team and can get support and reinforcement through discussion forums on the site.
• It’s personal, free (for a basic membership) and relatively easy to use, plus there’s a full range of social networking options.
• It’s hard to hide (or sit on the sofa swigging soda pop) when the numbers are staring you in the face. The feedback is immediate and as constant as you’d like it to be. (There’s also an iPhone companion application.)

A couple of rants:

• The site is free but there’s a targeted advertising with every click. Ad links are scattered so thoroughly among links you have to click to enter daily food consumption that you’re bound to get sidetracked sometimes whether you like it or not. (Hopefully the Foundation is using this ad revenue to fight cancer!)
• The site is a bit difficult to navigate and appears to be still a bit “buggy” as Livestrong.com tries to integrate The Daily Plate, which used to be an independent site. For example, we couldn’t find a one-click button to return to the Livestrong’s home page from our Daily Plate page. Bookmarks are a must with this tool.
• Some of the features that used to be free on the independent Plate site, such as the ability to link a photo to your discussion board posts, now require a “Gold” account upgrade. Gold members get other perks that create a “priority class” of site users. Time will tell if the two-tier approach affects the site’s community attitude.

The bottom line is this: The Daily Plate at Livestrong.com is a useful tool in the eat-better arsenal. Try it and tell us what you think!