Tracking

Tracking  what you're intaking and burning is always helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, at least until you get used to what things are "worth".

I have used different trackers at different times in my life and I've found it extremely helpful.

For the past ~6 months, I've been using the MyFitnessPal app  daily on my iPhone. It allows me to track my calories, fat, protein, carbs, fiber, sugar, vitamins, and more, along with different types of physical activity.

And honestly, I wasn't "dieting" for the first few weeks I was using this app. It made me AWARE of what I was eating. I saw how much I was eating that was SO unhealthy for me and how I wasn't getting enough protein, fiber, etc. It also makes you a little more aware BEFORE you eat of what you're putting into your body. I've used this app before to look at a menu and say "Oh, this is a little better for me because it has x grams of protein vs that other thing" or "Do I really want to waste x number of calories on THAT when I can eat this similar thing for half the calories?"

I would recommend tracking your nutrition and physical activity at least for awhile, to ANYONE that's looking to revamp their health status. I'm not telling you to go and obsess over it, but I make a conscious effort every day, on my dinner break at work, to just go into my app and track everything I've eaten for the day. I'll have often started my tracking earlier in the day, but it's a nice way to keep track of everything.

There are many different programs out there which can be used to track your progress - I'm aware that the Weight Watchers program has something similar, however I'm not really a fan of tracking points, and although I've never used the program, I like being able to see if I need to kick up my Vitamin A intake that day, or maybe I'm eating a bit too much sugar and I need to not have that dessert that I packed for dinner.
A few programs I've used and can recommend are: SparkPeople (which also has an app), MyFitnessPal (also has an app available), and CalorieCount (also has an app). These are all apps available on iPhone, I'm not sure about other smartphones. I've been using MyFitnessPal the longest and that's the only reason I haven't switched to some of the other apps, is I like having that progress to easily look back on.
I really like the Calorie Count app because it gives you a rating next to each (A+ through F) for how good it is for you, and also gives you a daily grade and gives you a breakdown of all your nutrients. It also has a scanner and voice-recognition feature, and goals to meet. I haven't used it extensively but it seems like an upgraded version of My Fitness Pal. It allows you to input your own goals along with its goals, and will auto-compute how much you should be eating per day based on your goals. There is a user-interaction area which I haven't played with much.
Spark People seems to have the most limited app. It has goals on the website (you earn points to get trophies), as well as an extensive user-interaction area, but the app really leaves something to be desired. I used the website when I did use this tracker.
My Fitness Pal is what I currently use and it allows you to have weight goals but doesn't give you any specific goals like "drinking 8 glasses of a water a day" or "logging on 10 days in a row". It does, however, allow you to put a target weight and tells you what you should be eating per day and can auto-create a diet plan for you if you choose. It also has the barcode scanning feature like Calorie Count. It has a user-interaction area that I've used to search for what different activities should be counted as in the fitness tracking section. I really like how I can create recipes or meals for things I use often or have concocted in the kitchen to see how detrimental it is to my health ;)