February 10, 2014

My Fitness Pal Review: What's Awesome, What's Awful



By Crabby McSlacker

I am obviously not the first person seeking to shed a few pounds who has discovered My Fitness Pal. 

Or, rather: "myfitnesspal," as its logo suggests it likes to be called. Apparently you're supposed to refer to it in one excited breathless blurt!!  Let's not be dawdling around pronouncing Three. Separate. Words.

Any of you have any thoughts on this or other trackers?  Here's what I've discovered so far.


However first up...

Some Boring Context and a Couple of Disclaimers

Research suggests that for many folks, keeping some sort of food journal or other method of tracking consumption aids greatly with weight loss.

And I'm one of those people! Food and activity tracking actually seem to work well for me--when I can suck it up and subject myself to it. My portion sizes and snack frequency tend to increase over time, and so every so often, I have to choose between instituting some form of accountability, or shopping for a whole new wardrobe of larger clothes.

And yeah, I hit that fork in the road yet again coming into 2014.



But rather than pick up that germy road-fork and use it for mischievous purposes...


...I decided to try to take the high road, and actually make an effort to statrt tracking calories consumed versus expended.  Plus, with the timing of the Fitbit Force review, the stars aligned and the patent-pending Crabby McSlacker Stop-Stuffing-Your-Face-and-Move-Your-Ass-More! © miracle weight loss program was born.

However, be forewarned: food and exercise tracking is not necessarily a great idea for everyone.  Especially if you have a history of anorexia or other eating disorder. Because the last thing you probably need is a program specifically designed to turn you into an obsessive crazy-pants calorie tracking machine who spends ridiculous amounts of time weighing, measuring, recording, and plotting and scheming and daydreaming about food.


Meet some of your fascinating new friends!
You will be seeing quite a lot of each other.

Also, this is not an official comparative review of every aspect of My Fitness Pal and how it stacks up to the 42,583 competing programs and apps out there. Just thinking about all of them makes my head hurt. This is just the stuff I like and don't like about using it.

Basics


MyFitnessPal is a free website and mobile app that lets you track your food intake, exercise, and weight loss, and allows you to participate in community discussions if you so choose.

I tend to use the website more than the app, because I'm old and hate dealing with tiny print, but there are some features that the app has that the web doesn't and vice versa, so it's good to have both.

As you go through your day, you enter what you eat and what you do:


Um, fun! Right?

Goal Setting


I briefly tried this program about a year ago, and as I recall, the goal setting sucked because you couldn't customize much, or maybe even at all. I can't honestly remember.

But you can now! So in addition to the "guided" options you can now individually decide what your weight loss, calorie, individual nutrient intake, and exercise goals are.

So if you want to try some bat-shit-crazy diet that will leave you malnourished or poisoned, or if you're feeling half-assed and don't mind packing on pounds faster than you can say "Ben and Jerrys" and "McDonalds" and "Dominoes?" You can use MyFitnessPal to do that now!

Food Entry


The great thing about MyFitnessPal is the enormous size of the database.  Because it is possibly the most popular of all the systems, the bazillions of users add data all the time, so 99.5% of the time you can find exxactly what you're looking for.

For example, they even had menu items listed from my favorite takeout burger place, Burger Lounge! (Which makes the most awesome grass-fed burgers and salads but only has a handful of locations so I was surprised it was in there.)


My Fitness Pal remembers the foods you enter, and allows you to create recipes or meals so if you eat the same things over and over, you don't have to start from scratch each time, you can just check a box and add.  And there is always the "quick add calories" option, which allows you to put something arbitrary in when you just don't have time to deal with the details.

However, there are still some major frustrations involved.

For one, MyFitnessPal is not such a great pal it will weigh and measure shit for you.  You gotta either guess wildly, or haul out some helpers.


Is it a pain to try to figure out the quantity of every morsel you eat all day long?

Yes, an enormous pain!

Cooking from scratch is already, in my mind, a horribly burdensome and time-consuming endeavor, and if you add weighing and measuring and logging each ingredient into a computer that is usually in a different room but you are to lazy to relocate it, it's that much worse.


What especially sucks about the My Fitness Pal Food Entry System:  You can't search your own foods! There is only a search function for the entire database.

Plus you can't display many entries per page, so you are having to scroll through many many pages of past entries looking for that elusive cup of chopped shiitake mushrooms you swore was in there somewhere. It's often faster to start over, but then you end up with 8 different variations of the same foods clogging up your list.

Plus, the alphabetical ordering is a crapshoot. Raw red bell peppers are not with the "R" or "B" or "P" foods but filed under "V" for "Vegetable, Red Bell Pepper," even though Strawberries aren't under "Fruit" but are just Strawberries.  And Mixed Nuts are under "K" for Kirkland and .... well, you get the picture.

There is the option to just choose from your "favorites" or most "frequent" but then the lists are too short so it's not all that helpful if you eat a reasonably diverse menu.

Hey My Fitness Pal, if you really wanna be a pal? Just add a damn search function and the option to display the entire list not broken into tiny pages, ok?

Nutrient Tracking


The program tracks a fair amount of different data--maybe not every micronutrient, but a lot of the basics.

However, at least on the website, you have to choose only six to display at any one time.  It remembers all the nutritional info though, regardless of what you choose.  So if you want to hassle with changing your settings to see more data, it has known all along, say, how much sodium or how little potassium you were consuming. It will tell you if you ask it, and then it will wait politely while pick yourself up off the floor and wipe the tears from your eyes.

Activity Tracking and Integration


In general, the exercise tracking is pretty lame.  The database sucks and I almost never find what I'm looking for, or if I do, I have little conviction that the numbers are accurate. I have my own independently invented system to approximate calorie expenditures for various activities and I trust that more than their exercise database.

But I am greatly aided by the whole Fitbit Force integration thing!  The force does a reasonable enough approximation of calories expended through running/walking/elliptical, and I only have to enter weird things like rowing or biking.

Force Wristband Not Actually Coming Unfastened for Once!

What's especially cool is since I just leave the fitbit usb dongle in my pc, MyFitnessPal "feels me" nearby and updates my calorie targets automatically throughout the day as I get more activity and make more food entries.

The program integrates with a bunch of other biometric devices too; if you've got one you can check the MyFitnessPal app gallery to see if it's compatible.

Community


There are forums and discussions and special interest groups all that kind of stuff!  But y'all know how I feel about Fitness Communities.  If it ain't the Cranky Fitness comment section, populated with the most awesome fun, funny, and warm individuals on the planet, them I'm not going to bother hanging out chatting.

(Wait, that's not totally true: I actually posted on MFP once. The topic was intermittent fasting and I thought I'd share my intermittent fasting experiment!  And then I realized I was being a total asshole to try to use a community forum to pimp my blog, and even though no one scolded me or anything I felt kinda slimy and so sheepishly wandered away and haven't posted since).

But many others, who are not community-hating blog-pimping spoilsports, find the whole community aspect to be the best part.


Feedback


To me, having charts and graphs to let me know how I'm doing is an incredibly helpful part of the whole tracking thing.  Unless you are a Biggest Loser, weight loss is rarely immediate or dramatic.  If you, like me, crave instant gratification, charts and reports can make you feel on track and successful much more quickly! Or can alert you to slacking and backtracking or failure to get the right nutrients or general greediness.

However, this is another place where the website is annoying; it won't give you average values over time; you need the mobile app to see that data.  And it can be really hard to eyeball off the web if you are all over the place like I tend to be.




(Note: these are NET calories after exercise has been subtracted; I eat a hell of a lot more than that. My actual consumption tends to be anywhere from 1400-2500 a day).

Overall Experience


I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but two things seem to be pretty consistently true of my experience:


  • Using MyFitnessPal is a huge pain in the ass.
  • And yet it works really well!


Having so much more information and a sense of accountability really does make me more strategic and thoughtful about what I eat, when I eat it, and when I eventually stop. And I actually enjoy myself more, not less!

I feel like I'm having as many "treats" as ever, but if I have enough in the budget, I can have them guilt-free and really savor them.

But I'm actually not having as many treats, it just somehow feels that way because I'm consuming them more mindfully.   It's only been 5-6 weeks, so who knows, but so far I'm on target for my calorie reduction and weight loss goals. (While I'm only ultimately trying to lose 5-10 pounds, at a rate of about 1/2 lb a week, the hope is that I can lose this mainly in visceral fat while hanging on to, or even increasing, muscle mass. Yeah right. Wish me luck!).

Further fantasizing: what I'd really like to do is get down to my "fightin' weight," and then stay on the stupid pain in the ass program until I actually figure out a maintenance plan that doesn't involve gaining and losing the same 5-10 pounds over and over every year or two. But I ain't counting my chickens. I've been doing the up-and-down thing my entire life, and can live with it, but heck, I figure it's worth a shot!


What do you guys think about Food and Exercise Tracking?  Helpful or Crazy-Making or Both?


51 comments:

  1. I think it's very useful and reveals exactly what's happening with our diets so we can make the needed adjustments. I also think I'm very glad that I do not have to do it because it is a lot of work.

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    1. I use MyFitnessPal and it's really useful. It's really useful when you're trying to understand and improve your food habits in a simple manner.
      In addition I also use ActivityTracker, it's a free iPhone app by Bits&Coffee that basically monitors your entire physical activity throughout the day. With these two apps I try to stay in shape, but it's not easy since I'm the one who has to do all the hard work.

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  2. Maybe it's changed since I tried it (one can only hope). I was trying to get data about how much I eat and INCREASING my intake -I eat right around my BMR, which is not good. But habit!

    The messages when I entered food for the day was shaming when I ate what I truly needed, and encouraged me to eat less. Couldn't figure out how to change that. NOT helpful...

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    1. I haven't noticed any shaming messages deb, am hoping now that the goals are more customizable this would not be the case anymore, because who the heck needs that!!

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  3. Weird. I've never had problems adding my own recipes on myfitness pal. There is a search function on both the mobile app and online, and it's super easy, in my opinion. I actually like this about it. If you follow a recipe, you already know how much of each thing you're putting in it.

    There are also tabs that allow you to search your own recipes, the entire database, your recent foods, and specific meals.

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    1. Hey Lex, thanks for your feedback!

      No problems entering my own recipes, just with searching individual items in my own lists.

      There does not seem to be a tab on my version of the website that allows me to search my own foods, but you have one? Maybe it's on the mobile app? Or is this a PC vs apple thing? Just in case I was missing something I searched the forums and other people reported wanting a search function for individual foods as well, but also concluded that there wasn't one.

      Maybe I'm just missing something!

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  4. Oh I think it would make me nuts to track everything I eat.. or do. I can see how it would work.. I just know I wouldn't keep at it for more than a day or two.

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  5. While I am curious as all get out to learn how many calories I take in each day I would never track them. I'm just like that. Meanwhile, I really, really, want to try Burger Lounge.

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  6. It is a huge pain in the ass. But it is a huge helper, it is what helped me lose 56 lbs and what I'm desperately trying to start incorporating again. I a lot of times will make my own recipes of what I am making, and after I've made a casserole or whatever, I will painstakingly sit there with a 1/2 cup and measure out how many servings for 1/2 cup I can get. Yup, but it's really the only way to really gauge the recipe accurately. Then I know if I have 1 cup of the meal I ate 2 servings. The phone app is cool because if you grab a sandwich from the local grocery store on the way you can scan the bar code and it usually will come up with the nutritional information. The worse definitely is the numerous items that are basically the same thing but someone will have not listed the ingredients correctly, or the company redid the item and added 10 calories to it or what not, so you have to be careful when selecting say cottage cheese, that it matches what your cottage cheese says, that is my biggest pet peeve. The message boards are interesting I participated in them for awhile and then just didn't. I don't like that it tends to just give women a basic 1200 calories as your goal for the day. When I started using it I was working out 6 days a week on my own and 3 days a week for a 2nd workout with some friends, so the amount of workouts I was doing, 1200 calories wasn't enough and it showed on the lack of weight loss, once I did a little research on how much I was burning, and muscle building I upped my calories to 1600 and boom the weight literally started melting off at that point, I was doing IF and I was consistently losing 2 lbs a week, now if I could just get back there???

    I agree it's a great tool and if you are anal retentive such as myself, then definitely go for it! I think also, that a lot of us underestimate our calories, you know oh that was just 200 calories, plus 100 for that bag of m&ms and you think, I probably ate 1200 calories when really you are probably closer to 2000. It's pretty eye opening at how quickly stuff adds up even when you are eating "healthy" But I'm okay with packing on the calories quickly when it's stuff like Avocado or Coconut Oil as opposed too Hershey kisses.

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    1. You bring up a great point SB, that one has to ignore high calorie counts on healthy things and not avoid them just to make the numbers look pretty! One day it would be lovely if the programs could automatically add extra calories to crapfoods and "discounts" for healthy stuff.

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  7. I usually go old school, paper and pen, to keep track of my food consumption. I measure everything in grams (only) and since I have a limited nr. of foods I actually like to eat, I have a list of cals/grams that I have memorized and I'm done.
    There are days when I am "off" and then I don't WANT to know how many cals I am eating, but I still have an appx. idea and enter the info into my journal, in order to keep track of a monthly avg.
    As always, apropos of absolutely nothing under discussion but jesus, is the age limit for Olympians "like" 9, now? Love watching new women's events but I am completely distracted by the fact that the women ski jumpers look like they should be in their K. classroom, practicing their alphabet, instead of being in Sochi. Sigh...it is true, the older you get...

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    1. Too funny about the kindergarten Olympians, I feel the same way dlamb! And sounds like you have a very efficient accountability system without needing any fancy apps.

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    2. Oh, yeah, those Olympians! I don't know whether it's weirder that more and more people look young compared to my daughters, or that the models in catalogs that show clothes I picture belonging on my mother or grandmother look pretty young to me now.

      I have never been willing to track food. I guess I can't stand the thought that someone going through my diaries (ok, online records) after I'm gone will actually be able to see just how much ice cream I have eaten. On the other hand, I love tracking my bike miles! The tracking was definitely an element that kept me going when I first got started on the fitness path, though. Maybe it would make me eat better...someday.

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  8. My brother has been using this app for a couple years and has lost weight. The big test was when my mother tried it. She used to live on a little bit of rabbit food and diet pop but always had 20 lbs to lose. She started eating more calories and more variety and lost the weight. Of course now she is in trouble for being under weight. She is also an annoying no-it-all now with the nutrition.
    I have used a different tracker and it does tend to make me a little crazy with its suggestions I will lose 2 lbs this week (never happens) so I use it on and off. It should just keep its opinions to itself.

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    1. Agreed Cindy! I guess apps are like relatives, you gotta only listen to their opinions when they're what you wanna hear and learn to tune 'em out otherwise!

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  9. It does have its issues, but Myfitnesspal is the reason I was able to finally wrap my brain around what a portion size is supposed to look like. I had been at this for two years before signing up and had lost 40 pounds, but was stuck for a year because I still didn't know how to food. The site has helped me drop another 25 while learning about macronutrients, body recomp, and calorie burns, so I'm extremely fond of it.

    That said, I'm also a huge fan of data tracking and progress charts, so that might also be why it has worked so well. Initially, I just chose it because it has the biggest database. :-)

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    1. Wow, 65 pounds Heather? You are a rockstar!!!

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  10. I track food and exercise on the WeightWatchers app. It's easier than Myfitnesspal as it uses points and those are simpler to estimate. After a while, ones know the point value of things one eats frequently. But Myfitnesspal would give more useful info on diet patterns by fat, protein, etc. Tracking in general does keep me on track! So I'm gonna keep on doing it. I've been at my goal weight for over a year. Woo-who!

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    1. Bob Ben, that's my experience too. For a time I tracked PPV and on SparkPeople so I could see how much protein I was getting (I became vegetarian, it seemed important to check). I also just got a fitbit, so I tracked on myfitnesspal for a day just to see the integration. I think all tracking programs have that initial "set up" where you need to get your foods customized, favorited, what have you. So whenever I try a new system I think "man, this isn't as easy as WW" but that's because I've been doing WW forever!

      Congrats on maintaining!

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    2. Congrats to both you gals for using WW so successfully and finding tools that work for ya!

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  11. It sounds like something to try if you count calories and such, which i do not. Although, back when i did, paper and pencil and the book of calorie counts was all i had. Anything online would probably be faster, at least.

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  12. Food journaling is a huge help, at least for me. When I need to lose just a few pounds, out come my paper and pen and I swear, you'd think it was the most powerful thing invented. I cringe if I eat something that's less than stellar for me and I know I have to write it down. Big sugar turnoff for me. And I don't get caught up in the caloric amount, grams and portion sizes because I know if I'm eating something healthy, like the coveted leafy greens, I can eat as much of them as I need since they're providing me with so much more than a say, the cupcake I'd rather be eating. I think that if someone finds that a more involved app works for them, then by all means, app away! It's all about finding what's right for you and what will keep you honest and accountable!

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    1. Sounds like you have a great system Anne Marie, and I agree with how unpleasant it is to have to log stuff you know is evil--really does shift choices a bit know you're gonna have to write em down.

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  13. I am far to LAZY to ever track my food - years ago I tried and made it about 2 hours (and then I ate!). The Fitness Pal app sounds pretty good - happy tracking!!!

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  14. My husband and I just ate at Burger Lounge on Friday, for the first time in a long while. We were headed up to Orange County and stopped at the one in Carlsbad. I usually go for the quinoa burger which is AWESOME but tried one of the salads. I'd run 15 miles that morning so was STARVING, but honestly it was one of the best salads I've ever had.

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    1. Yay Burger Lounge! I like their quinoa burger too OTF and I'm not even vegetarian. Everything I've ever had there has been great. And YAY for the 15 mile run!

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  15. I do think it can really help some people that seem at loss for why they are not making progress - many times they have no idea how much they are eating & how little movement they are doing OR that you can't outtrain a bad diet! ;)

    I am glad that I am at a point where I can figure it all out without the tracking BUT I did do it in my younger years.

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  16. You crack me up. Good tool! I use Run Keeper and Ultimate Food Diary - two helpful aps for keeping up with activity and food.

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    1. Haven't heard of Ultimate Food Diary, Anew, but sounds intriguing!

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  17. It's definitely a little bit of both, but I'd probably be lost without it! I use it almost daily, even if I don't remember to press the completed thing at the end of the day. LOL

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    1. I don't think I've EVER hit the completed thing either Courtney, I'm somehow afraid it would make me want to run to the refrigerator out of rebellious spite or something just because I'd proclaimed myself done. :)

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  18. I used MFP when I was actively trying to lose weight, and I thought it was the best of all the programs out there at the time (2008/09, back in the dark ages). I could save my favorite foods/meal combos so it seemed simple to track the things I ate on a regular basis, but I do remember having to find certain foods in a very roundabout way. Still, I think it's a good tool when you need it, and for free? Can't beat that.

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    1. Wow you were an early adapter Shelley! And I believe the database has improved a LOT from the "dark ages."

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  19. I can go both ways with food tracking. Previously when I've attempted to track my food and exercise, i I wasn't perfect well then, I might as well give up. It always left me feeling worse off. Now I track intermittently to make sure I'm on the right track - that my intake is what I think it is. This is particularly the case when I eat out because it can be so misleading and it's so easy to underestimate your intake. At this point, this is working for me - I hope it continues. Oh - I use fatsecret instead of mfp. There's also cron-o-meter, which looks interesting, but doesn't seem to have quite the nutritional information of other databases, but is full tilt on the nutritional information of those items its database does contain.

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    1. Interesting about Fat Secret and Cron-o-meter, there are so many possibilites out there now LuckyMama! And that's great that you've figured out how to track in a way that works for you and doesn't trigger the black/white thinking.

      I find the "make a wild ass guess and use quick add calories" (which I imagine they all have) to be the best way to deal with the perfectionism problem. It's kind of a magic in-between tracking and not tracking on those days when it just ain't happening.

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  20. I think food tracking sites are designed to be annoying. When I was tracking my food for several months when I first started trying to lose the thirty pounds I'd gained in about thirty years, I thought the boredom would drive me away, but I was interested in how much I was getting in vitamins from what I ate, so I kept on with it. I think this was Fitday: foods were so hard to find I kept eating things I could find in "Recent" just to make it easier.
    Then I tried Spark People, which was just as annoying with its endless nagging for me to track how much water I drink. Since I've been drinking at least eight glasses a day since 1971 I didn't see the need. So I can guess that MFP would be just as annoying, and make me do too much work to get at those enjoyable charts.

    Mary Anne in Kentucky

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    1. Too funny that the hassles of tracking were actually inducing you to keep eating the same foods Mary Anne!

      I TOTALLY ignore the water reminders, as at my last physical my numbers came up funny from drinking too much! Was told to go back to just drinking when thirsty. :)

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  21. I have tried food tracking sites in the past but found it annoying that I had to spend 30 mins every evening entering details of what I'd eaten and fiddling with their drop down menus... (Can't use a phone app during the day due to restrictions at work).

    However a few days before this post came out (synchronous posting or what!) I have gone back to using a small paper notebook and pen. My intention is simply to list What and Why - the "What" is just a brief reminder of the food, but without weighing it precisely. The "Why" is more interesting to work on for me right now. For example yesterday had "What" - Coffee and chocolate brownie, 11 a.m. "Why" - Because a co-worker made some and brought them in. Which was nice of him but I didn't actually have to respond by eating one at that moment........

    Things to work on for me!

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    1. What an excellent idea Fliss! Because the "why" is where change really happens I think, if we take time to think about it and get strategic. Food trackers should totally have a "why" column!

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  22. I must confess that I do have this APP... But I use it only if I am curious as to how many calories are in a specific food... But I don't log my calories. I used to, and it DROVE ME CRAZZYYYY!!! So I had to stop and lets just say, my BRAIN CLEARED out tremendously! So in my mind, I think that logging calories is definitely NOT for everyone!

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    1. Plus, Gigi, I looked in the database and they don't have nutritional info for any celebrities I could think of! So wouldn't work at ALL with your diet! :)

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  23. I have been lurking around for 6 months, and am really enjoying the frequent posts. The day after reading this my husband decided to get serious about loosing the weight he gained when we quit tobacco, 12 years ago, so I set this up for him. It is great to not be the tracker and calorie and portion referee. I'm using it to, supportive girl that I am. And I thought you might want to know, you can click finished entering for the day, and still go back in and add a late night bowl of popcorn. And if you are the really supportive type you can even refrain from pouring butter all over your own bowl, not that I did.

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    1. Welcome AA96726! So glad you joined us!

      Thanks for the info that a premature "finished eating" doesn't have any punitive repercussions. Im not sure what I thought would happen, that it would explode if you went back after saying you were through?

      And great idea to offload calorie tracking and referee duties to a program rather than take that on with a spouse. It's his "Fitness Pal" being all mean and strict and judgmental and not letting him have butter, not you! Very smart.

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  24. I love MyFitnessPal! I use it all the time and I love it! Honestly! I think you hit on some good areas that need improvement like the exercise, but I think its a wonderful tool!

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  25. I just switched to MFP after using Loseit for over a year. I stopped tracking for the last 6 months. I really like MFP better because of the charts and reports it displays as well as the extensive data base. If the food I want is listed more than once I just review the Nutrition content for correctness before adding to my log. I have finally found that tracking my food is what I needed to lose weight and I think it's easy. I guess I just like all this kind of fitness stuff. One trick I did learn regarding logging exercise, my trainer said not to eat your calories burned so after entering my workout minutes I change the calories to 1. This way I can still track how much I work out but don't worry about calories burned.

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  26. The tracker is nice and the food database is great. But I do not recommend ever posting anything on the forum ever unless you post something very bland and average. If you fall outside the norm of "I ate less so I lost weight" and have nothing you want to discuss or find people similar to you, avoid the community at all costs. It's fullof angry trolls who like to use abuse flags with abandon. I posted one time and had to abandon my account entirely to escape it. It's like a YouTube comment section.

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  27. I think exercising tracking is good enough, food tracking is not my thing. Anyway great review job done! Seems like a nice app to track real complicated things in our life. Specially tracking foods! I like the app, & looking forward to use it.

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  28. I use mfp more as a guideline to remind me what i have eaten. Over the years i have learnt enough about food to use it in this way, but if you are starting out you will need to be very exact with your entries and calories. The charts are helpful and the nutrient page can help you to choose a small banana for a snack to get more potassium or some yoghurt if your calcium is low. But any program is only as good as its building blocks and here lies the problem. The free version of mfp is very basic and doesnt let you change the protein/carb ratio or any particular nutrient setting. The search function is messy where people dump all sorts of foods without entering proper nutritional values and is hell for a beginner. I have seen vastly undercalculated values for calories (wishful thinking...) and the lack of standardised entry for type, calories and serving in both metric and non-metric is frustrating. It also does not list all your recent foods only the same meal ones, so if you want to enter something as a snack that you normally have for breakfast you have to look it up again or painstakingly copy it from a previous day. I dont like the message that pops up when you eat under 1200 calories net -it's a bit patronising particularly if you know that even just your calories to maintain weight is around 1100 !! And if you want to cheat the system as a countingcalorienazi then that is easy enough. But i guess they feel some sort of warning is warranted. I dont use the forum.

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  29. What is nice about the app is the ability to scan barcodes. This is my first time using a nutrition and fitness program and I found it really easy to use. After I get off the weight I will continue to use it to help maintain.

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  30. I am someone who never enjoyed dieting. Hated it. It's because I couldn't eat what I want. Using MyFitnessPal has been amazing. Using this app I can keep track of my calories and macro-nutrients. I lost 2 lbs last week, it keeps me accountable and feels like a game to me.
    The only downside is that counting your calories is really annoying, and it takes a lot of discipline. However, if you need something to help you meet your fitness goals MyFitnessPal is the way to go.

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  31. This app is aggressively awful. I tried to start with breakfast and it made me enter everything imaginable for a banana, like the brand (like it makes a difference if it's a Dole banana instead of a Brand X?), weight, cups per serving, carbs, calories. potassium, fat, salt, sugar, iron and something like 20 total categories. I tried a few other things and it's all the same. Is this a joke? If I knew all this, I wouldn't need the app! This is the stupidest thing I've come across in years.

    ReplyDelete

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