My Fitness Frenemy
January 24, 2016 8:31 PM Subscribe
I have started and quit My Fitness Pal so many times, but this time I am determined to make it work for me. Please help me use it without so much aggravation! Questions inside...
1) what is the difference between "my foods" and "my meals"? I want to add individual food items to "my foods" via scanning the barcode (eg, store bought bagels) but it won't seem to let me do that - it scans it into my food diary and then it only lets me save it to "my meals," not "my foods."
2) when I need to enter custom recipes, do I really need to weigh each ingredient and enter them individually, or is there a more efficient way to do this? More importantly, how do I determine portion sizes for my own recipes? (eg, stuffed peppers - if they're small, I'll have two, but if they're large, I'll have one. these two options may not be equal to each other in "portion size," if that makes sense.)
3) what are these "macros" all the kids are talking about these days?!
4) am I overthinking this whole thing, or is the interface actually as confusing and hard to use as I think? Does anyone else feel a different calorie counter app is more user-friendly than MFP?
As always, I appreciate anyone taking the time to answer any of my questions! Any other hints or tips for using MFP would be VERY welcome - it is time for me to learn how to food, but man, is it overwhelming.
1) what is the difference between "my foods" and "my meals"? I want to add individual food items to "my foods" via scanning the barcode (eg, store bought bagels) but it won't seem to let me do that - it scans it into my food diary and then it only lets me save it to "my meals," not "my foods."
2) when I need to enter custom recipes, do I really need to weigh each ingredient and enter them individually, or is there a more efficient way to do this? More importantly, how do I determine portion sizes for my own recipes? (eg, stuffed peppers - if they're small, I'll have two, but if they're large, I'll have one. these two options may not be equal to each other in "portion size," if that makes sense.)
3) what are these "macros" all the kids are talking about these days?!
4) am I overthinking this whole thing, or is the interface actually as confusing and hard to use as I think? Does anyone else feel a different calorie counter app is more user-friendly than MFP?
As always, I appreciate anyone taking the time to answer any of my questions! Any other hints or tips for using MFP would be VERY welcome - it is time for me to learn how to food, but man, is it overwhelming.
For point (2), well, yes, of course you have to weigh the ingredients and enter them individually. The point is to be able to log exactly what foods you're eating and how much; how else could you do it?
I use a different food tracker, but I run into the same thing, and my general practice is to make a batch, keeping track of the amounts I use (without bothering to weigh out, e.g., the exact weight of a chopped carrot added to a pot of soup, since the calorie difference if I'm plus or minus 20% on a vegetable is minimal), and then see how much the end product is, either by weight or volume. So for example, one soup recipe I've made several times makes about 3.5 quarts, and a candy recipe I made at Christmas made about 900 grams total. I enter that total as the yield of the recipe. Then when I serve myself, I can just measure the individual serving and plug that number into my food tracker; I assume MyFitnessPal allows you to do the same thing. So for stuffed peppers, I'd weigh the whole resulting batch and then put in the weights of each individual serving when eating them.
You always can estimate more loosely if you want; for instance, say a batch of stuffed peppers makes a dozen: if you're going to eat the whole thing, it doesn't matter that much if you just divide the total by 12 and have your calorie counts be a little off day by day, since your weekly totals will be right. But I am kind of anal retentive.
And for (3), macros are macronutrients, i.e. fat, protein, and carbohydrates. They're the things with calories. People have varying ideas about the best macronutrient ratio in your diet.
posted by mister pointy at 8:49 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
I use a different food tracker, but I run into the same thing, and my general practice is to make a batch, keeping track of the amounts I use (without bothering to weigh out, e.g., the exact weight of a chopped carrot added to a pot of soup, since the calorie difference if I'm plus or minus 20% on a vegetable is minimal), and then see how much the end product is, either by weight or volume. So for example, one soup recipe I've made several times makes about 3.5 quarts, and a candy recipe I made at Christmas made about 900 grams total. I enter that total as the yield of the recipe. Then when I serve myself, I can just measure the individual serving and plug that number into my food tracker; I assume MyFitnessPal allows you to do the same thing. So for stuffed peppers, I'd weigh the whole resulting batch and then put in the weights of each individual serving when eating them.
You always can estimate more loosely if you want; for instance, say a batch of stuffed peppers makes a dozen: if you're going to eat the whole thing, it doesn't matter that much if you just divide the total by 12 and have your calorie counts be a little off day by day, since your weekly totals will be right. But I am kind of anal retentive.
And for (3), macros are macronutrients, i.e. fat, protein, and carbohydrates. They're the things with calories. People have varying ideas about the best macronutrient ratio in your diet.
posted by mister pointy at 8:49 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
For item 2, if the recipe is coming from a web site, you can try to import it (when you first hit the recipe tab, there's a box to enter the URL). If not, then you do need to input all the ingredients, although you can type them all in the input box at once (one per line) and it will do a best match. You can use weights or volume measurements and it will do a pretty good job of matching (so either 10 grams butter or 1 T butter).
As for portion sizes, for things like soups, I'll weigh the finished recipe and then write down what a serving is for that batch. For things like your stuffed peppers, I'd probably enter the number of peppers as the number of portions and then log 2 portions if I eat two smalls and 1 if I eat a large one. What I try to remember about this stuff is that while it's important to be accurate, it's going to average out for the most part. So if you make 5 peppers and some of them are big and some are small, on the day you eat a big one, maybe your daily calorie count is a little low compared to what you actually ate but on the days you eat a small one, your count is higher than what you actually ate. So over the week, it evens out.
I can't speak to macros - I use MPF as a blunt instrument calorie tracker (and occasionally to remind me to not eat only salty stuff all day every day).
For 4, my experience has been that the more you use it, the better it gets. Mostly because there's some upfront work, loading in your recipes and specific foods you use, as you're encountering now, but after a couple of months all the basics are in there and logging is pretty easy. Now, I'm one of those people who has a pretty routine eating style, so if you're creating new recipes every evening, that's going to be a lot more work but I don't know of a different tracker that would make it easier.
posted by macfly at 8:53 PM on January 24, 2016
As for portion sizes, for things like soups, I'll weigh the finished recipe and then write down what a serving is for that batch. For things like your stuffed peppers, I'd probably enter the number of peppers as the number of portions and then log 2 portions if I eat two smalls and 1 if I eat a large one. What I try to remember about this stuff is that while it's important to be accurate, it's going to average out for the most part. So if you make 5 peppers and some of them are big and some are small, on the day you eat a big one, maybe your daily calorie count is a little low compared to what you actually ate but on the days you eat a small one, your count is higher than what you actually ate. So over the week, it evens out.
I can't speak to macros - I use MPF as a blunt instrument calorie tracker (and occasionally to remind me to not eat only salty stuff all day every day).
For 4, my experience has been that the more you use it, the better it gets. Mostly because there's some upfront work, loading in your recipes and specific foods you use, as you're encountering now, but after a couple of months all the basics are in there and logging is pretty easy. Now, I'm one of those people who has a pretty routine eating style, so if you're creating new recipes every evening, that's going to be a lot more work but I don't know of a different tracker that would make it easier.
posted by macfly at 8:53 PM on January 24, 2016
Others have answered 1 & 2.
On 3, Macros are macronutrients, that is, the generic three: protein, carbs, fat.
On 4, I have a slightly different answer. I know some people are really into getting the most precise measurement possible, but the truth is that even the calories listed in their "approved" database for raw ingredients (eg. from the FDA or where ever) are nothing but gross estimates.
My general tack has been to not spend a lot of time de-motivating myself. I chose a preexisting food that matches what I ate and use that in the appropriate volume quantity (this is easy to figure out, look at a measuring cup or remember what a 12oz steak looks like -- measure in half-cup or 100ml increments depending on your locale).
That alone will give you a very good idea of what you're eating -- it's going to be very obvious -- if you're honest about it. That is, if you made yourself jambalaya, there are going to be a hundred different variations on that in the database -- choose the one, in the appropriate quantity that seems in line with the consensus. Add an avocado if you added one to the basic recipe, etc. No need to measure each ingredient separately -- it's not going to make a difference.
The point is not to know exactly down to last gram (and like I said above, I think weighing your food is waste of time given the error margins) because the issue is rarely that you ate 5% more than you should have -- the issue is usually that you're eating more like 50% more than you should have. This is usually because you either haven't been paying attention to what you eat over a week (e.g snacking), and you don't realize how calorific even a "typical" version of your dish is (e.g. spaghetti with meat balls).
posted by smidgen at 9:05 PM on January 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
On 3, Macros are macronutrients, that is, the generic three: protein, carbs, fat.
On 4, I have a slightly different answer. I know some people are really into getting the most precise measurement possible, but the truth is that even the calories listed in their "approved" database for raw ingredients (eg. from the FDA or where ever) are nothing but gross estimates.
My general tack has been to not spend a lot of time de-motivating myself. I chose a preexisting food that matches what I ate and use that in the appropriate volume quantity (this is easy to figure out, look at a measuring cup or remember what a 12oz steak looks like -- measure in half-cup or 100ml increments depending on your locale).
That alone will give you a very good idea of what you're eating -- it's going to be very obvious -- if you're honest about it. That is, if you made yourself jambalaya, there are going to be a hundred different variations on that in the database -- choose the one, in the appropriate quantity that seems in line with the consensus. Add an avocado if you added one to the basic recipe, etc. No need to measure each ingredient separately -- it's not going to make a difference.
The point is not to know exactly down to last gram (and like I said above, I think weighing your food is waste of time given the error margins) because the issue is rarely that you ate 5% more than you should have -- the issue is usually that you're eating more like 50% more than you should have. This is usually because you either haven't been paying attention to what you eat over a week (e.g snacking), and you don't realize how calorific even a "typical" version of your dish is (e.g. spaghetti with meat balls).
posted by smidgen at 9:05 PM on January 24, 2016 [4 favorites]
A few weeks ago I switched from MFP - which I had used for ages on the pc and phone - to Lose It. Same basic functionality, but I just like Lose It a crapload better.
I'm not a "to the gram" measurement person. I eyeball most things, but do sometimes measure when I'm at home just to keep my eye trained to portion sizes. The food database is an approximation at best and I figure that as long as try to estimate sizes I'm okay. If there are a bunch of choices for a food, I usually pick one of the higher calorie estimates (especially if the food has that shimmer of fat that restaurant foods always do).
It's worth downloading a couple of apps and finding out if there's one that's a better match for you.
posted by 26.2 at 9:27 PM on January 24, 2016
I'm not a "to the gram" measurement person. I eyeball most things, but do sometimes measure when I'm at home just to keep my eye trained to portion sizes. The food database is an approximation at best and I figure that as long as try to estimate sizes I'm okay. If there are a bunch of choices for a food, I usually pick one of the higher calorie estimates (especially if the food has that shimmer of fat that restaurant foods always do).
It's worth downloading a couple of apps and finding out if there's one that's a better match for you.
posted by 26.2 at 9:27 PM on January 24, 2016
Nthing the idea that after a week or even a few days it gets faster as I just end up eating the same lunch every day when using it and there is a 'swipe right to add yesterday's meal' option. I have always eaten the same brekky each day so that just leaves dinner. Some recipe books have whole meal calorie counts, which is handy. I also just search other people's entries and use approximations, erring on the side of the higher calorie option. So tonight rather than weighing each portion of veg (and you can especially do this with veg as they are worth very little) I used someone's previous entry: '1 cup stir fried vegetable'.
Obviously you need to be careful with this and with things like my daily portion of cheese in my sandwich I did weigh it the first time.
I agree with other posters that at least with some things it is very useful to know how much cheese, for example, I should eat in my lunch if I want to have a certain amount of snacks later. I tend to use MFP every year or so to lose a kilo that I may have put on over the course of the year and also to remind myself of what a healthy amount of food and calorie-dense food is. It tends to keep me stable for a bit and then I get slack and eat too much cake and drink too much beer and I start again. I honestly find this much more empowering and less of a hassle than any other dieting method I have tried because it is entirely based around what I normally eat.
Re: macros- I don't bother with this much. I figure I know what I should eat- more veg, fewer pastries- and counting calories tends to point me in that direction anyway. Ymmv; if your normal diet is particularly unhealthy I guess it would be more necessary.
posted by jojobobo at 9:47 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Obviously you need to be careful with this and with things like my daily portion of cheese in my sandwich I did weigh it the first time.
I agree with other posters that at least with some things it is very useful to know how much cheese, for example, I should eat in my lunch if I want to have a certain amount of snacks later. I tend to use MFP every year or so to lose a kilo that I may have put on over the course of the year and also to remind myself of what a healthy amount of food and calorie-dense food is. It tends to keep me stable for a bit and then I get slack and eat too much cake and drink too much beer and I start again. I honestly find this much more empowering and less of a hassle than any other dieting method I have tried because it is entirely based around what I normally eat.
Re: macros- I don't bother with this much. I figure I know what I should eat- more veg, fewer pastries- and counting calories tends to point me in that direction anyway. Ymmv; if your normal diet is particularly unhealthy I guess it would be more necessary.
posted by jojobobo at 9:47 PM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure MyFitnessPal would be great for you if you cook a variety of recipes from scratch on a regular basis - logging all the individual ingredients is time consuming but if you don't do it your calorie could could be wildly off. But if you cook the same things all the time, you can save it as a meal so then you don't have to keep logging all the ingredients. On occasions when you don't know the ingredients (eg. eating out) you can search for a similar sounding meal in their database - it's guesswork but better than nothing! It works well for me because I don't do a lot of cooking from scratch and eat a lot of things with a barcode that can be easily scanned. Plus I like the way it counts my exercise calories and tells me how much I'm allowed to eat each day. I have it linked to MapMyFitness and Fitbit so my calorie allowance adjusts itself automatically the more I do.
Macros - these don't have to be spot on, but give them a glance - if you are eating way more/less than the recommended amounts then try to work out a way of adapting your diet. But if your main goal is weight loss (you don't say, but this seems to be the most common reason for starting MFPing!), calories should be your main focus.
posted by intensitymultiply at 2:44 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Macros - these don't have to be spot on, but give them a glance - if you are eating way more/less than the recommended amounts then try to work out a way of adapting your diet. But if your main goal is weight loss (you don't say, but this seems to be the most common reason for starting MFPing!), calories should be your main focus.
posted by intensitymultiply at 2:44 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have about 10 recipes I have saved in MFP. They're relatively detailed, but it's nice to be able to click one button whenever I eat them to have them logged.
It's just a matter of diligence. We use a measuring cup at the table to ensure we're only taking a half cup of rice versus piling it on and not knowing at all the amount we've eaten.
posted by heathrowga at 7:38 AM on January 25, 2016
It's just a matter of diligence. We use a measuring cup at the table to ensure we're only taking a half cup of rice versus piling it on and not knowing at all the amount we've eaten.
posted by heathrowga at 7:38 AM on January 25, 2016
If you're going to enter items in your diary by scanning barcodes, there's no benefit to saving them. If you eat them frequently, they'll appear in the Frequent tab in your food diary (online), or you can search for them on the phone/tablet app, which keeps a longer history than the website (or so it seems to me).
For custom recipes, you do need to add items individually if you're using the phone or tablet app. However, the website allows you to enter a recipe URL, or to bulk enter ingredients, and then it tries to match them. That can be faster than entering each item individually, depending on how well the site matches ingredients.
I have created over 100 recipes in MFP. Sure, it took 5 minutes or so per recipe each time I cooked something new, but by this point, I'm only entering 2 or 3 new recipes each month. I don't bother adding herbs, spices, and other such small things, and I'm not fussy about quantities with ingredients that aren't calorie-dense—if there's one onion in a dish that will make eight servings, I'll just eyeball it and enter it as a small, medium, or large onion, rather than weighing it. I'll only weigh or measure calorie-dense things such as meat (usually weighed by the butcher anyway), cheese, oil, nuts, etc.
I'll also sometimes create a partial recipe and then log that plus the other ingredients. For example, I have a recipe for beef taco filling (seasoned meat, tomatoes, shredded cheese, lettuce, and salsa). If I make tacos, I log that plus the tortillas. If I use the leftovers for taco salad, I'll log the filling plus whatever veggies and tortilla chips I add.
After 3+ years with MFP I've found that the app is good for some stuff, and the web interface for other things. Try doing stuff with each and decide for yourself which is easier.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:42 AM on January 25, 2016
For custom recipes, you do need to add items individually if you're using the phone or tablet app. However, the website allows you to enter a recipe URL, or to bulk enter ingredients, and then it tries to match them. That can be faster than entering each item individually, depending on how well the site matches ingredients.
I have created over 100 recipes in MFP. Sure, it took 5 minutes or so per recipe each time I cooked something new, but by this point, I'm only entering 2 or 3 new recipes each month. I don't bother adding herbs, spices, and other such small things, and I'm not fussy about quantities with ingredients that aren't calorie-dense—if there's one onion in a dish that will make eight servings, I'll just eyeball it and enter it as a small, medium, or large onion, rather than weighing it. I'll only weigh or measure calorie-dense things such as meat (usually weighed by the butcher anyway), cheese, oil, nuts, etc.
I'll also sometimes create a partial recipe and then log that plus the other ingredients. For example, I have a recipe for beef taco filling (seasoned meat, tomatoes, shredded cheese, lettuce, and salsa). If I make tacos, I log that plus the tortillas. If I use the leftovers for taco salad, I'll log the filling plus whatever veggies and tortilla chips I add.
After 3+ years with MFP I've found that the app is good for some stuff, and the web interface for other things. Try doing stuff with each and decide for yourself which is easier.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:42 AM on January 25, 2016
I have a love-hate relationship with MFP too. Free is free but I find the database so large as to be nearly unworkable at times. I haven't found a really great alternative.
I want to add individual food items to "my foods" via scanning the barcode (eg, store bought bagels) but it won't seem to let me do that - it scans it into my food diary and then it only lets me save it to "my meals," not "my foods."
That's correct. MFP will automatically show you the foods you've logged before. From the website, when you are entering a food, you can toggle between seeing "recent" or "frequent" foods and you can have it show all meals or just the current meal. You can delete items from the recent/frequent list but I don't know of a way to add them other than by logging them in your diary.
2) when I need to enter custom recipes, do I really need to weigh each ingredient and enter them individually, or is there a more efficient way to do this? More importantly, how do I determine portion sizes for my own recipes? (eg, stuffed peppers - if they're small, I'll have two, but if they're large, I'll have one. these two options may not be equal to each other in "portion size," if that makes sense.)
That's pretty much what you have to do--this is where it helps to follow a recipe the same way every time. If I do make changes to a recipe I will also edit the recipe in MFP. For your stuffed peppers example I would probably enter the entire recipe except for the peppers--essentially, the nutritional info would be for the filling. Then when it came time to log the entry I'd log however many peppers I had plus an estimate of how much filling they contained. Like the single pepper might be 1/6 of the recipe but two smaller peppers might be 1/4. (I find that most of what I make--a lot of grain- and bean-based meals--ends up serving 6, so that's my default serving size so I can remember it without looking at the recipe. If I eat 1/4 of the recipe instead I can log it as 1.5 servings.)
If you do use the recipe importer, make sure to double- and triple-check every single match. I usually have to fix at least half of the foods it matches to. Sometimes the name will be right but the calorie count is off--for some reason every time I add a recipe with a few cloves of garlic, it finds the garlic but enters it as something like 1600 calories. It is so clunky and you do need to have an idea of how many calories are in foods to make sure it looks right. Also keep an eye out for cooked vs. raw--like if you are making a recipe with a pound of dry beans but it puts in a pound of cooked beans, the count will be totally off.
I prefer caloriecount.com's recipe analyzer but even there you have to match a lot of foods manually.
4) am I overthinking this whole thing, or is the interface actually as confusing and hard to use as I think? Does anyone else feel a different calorie counter app is more user-friendly than MFP?
It's not just you! I can't stand how bloated the database is and it makes me rage when I enter something like "apple" and have to scroll through a bunch of results for apple turnover, Quest Apple Pie Protein Bar, etc. just to get to the damn piece of fruit. Unfortunately every alternative I've tried has its own issues. LoseIt was better for finding what you need quickly, but you have to enter portions in fractions, you can't use decimals and sometimes that means losing a lot of precision. I liked Calorie Count's own app but found too many inconsistencies. I paid Weight Watchers for a while but you have to buy into their whole value system of what type of diet to eat, which right now leans heavier on the protein than I care for. For a time I used a simple phone app without a database, where you just enter calories directly. This works great if you already know how many calories are in a food but often requires a secondary source to look up some things.
posted by mama casserole at 7:53 AM on January 25, 2016
I want to add individual food items to "my foods" via scanning the barcode (eg, store bought bagels) but it won't seem to let me do that - it scans it into my food diary and then it only lets me save it to "my meals," not "my foods."
That's correct. MFP will automatically show you the foods you've logged before. From the website, when you are entering a food, you can toggle between seeing "recent" or "frequent" foods and you can have it show all meals or just the current meal. You can delete items from the recent/frequent list but I don't know of a way to add them other than by logging them in your diary.
2) when I need to enter custom recipes, do I really need to weigh each ingredient and enter them individually, or is there a more efficient way to do this? More importantly, how do I determine portion sizes for my own recipes? (eg, stuffed peppers - if they're small, I'll have two, but if they're large, I'll have one. these two options may not be equal to each other in "portion size," if that makes sense.)
That's pretty much what you have to do--this is where it helps to follow a recipe the same way every time. If I do make changes to a recipe I will also edit the recipe in MFP. For your stuffed peppers example I would probably enter the entire recipe except for the peppers--essentially, the nutritional info would be for the filling. Then when it came time to log the entry I'd log however many peppers I had plus an estimate of how much filling they contained. Like the single pepper might be 1/6 of the recipe but two smaller peppers might be 1/4. (I find that most of what I make--a lot of grain- and bean-based meals--ends up serving 6, so that's my default serving size so I can remember it without looking at the recipe. If I eat 1/4 of the recipe instead I can log it as 1.5 servings.)
If you do use the recipe importer, make sure to double- and triple-check every single match. I usually have to fix at least half of the foods it matches to. Sometimes the name will be right but the calorie count is off--for some reason every time I add a recipe with a few cloves of garlic, it finds the garlic but enters it as something like 1600 calories. It is so clunky and you do need to have an idea of how many calories are in foods to make sure it looks right. Also keep an eye out for cooked vs. raw--like if you are making a recipe with a pound of dry beans but it puts in a pound of cooked beans, the count will be totally off.
I prefer caloriecount.com's recipe analyzer but even there you have to match a lot of foods manually.
4) am I overthinking this whole thing, or is the interface actually as confusing and hard to use as I think? Does anyone else feel a different calorie counter app is more user-friendly than MFP?
It's not just you! I can't stand how bloated the database is and it makes me rage when I enter something like "apple" and have to scroll through a bunch of results for apple turnover, Quest Apple Pie Protein Bar, etc. just to get to the damn piece of fruit. Unfortunately every alternative I've tried has its own issues. LoseIt was better for finding what you need quickly, but you have to enter portions in fractions, you can't use decimals and sometimes that means losing a lot of precision. I liked Calorie Count's own app but found too many inconsistencies. I paid Weight Watchers for a while but you have to buy into their whole value system of what type of diet to eat, which right now leans heavier on the protein than I care for. For a time I used a simple phone app without a database, where you just enter calories directly. This works great if you already know how many calories are in a food but often requires a secondary source to look up some things.
posted by mama casserole at 7:53 AM on January 25, 2016
A tip for navigating the database better, add USDA to your search for fruits, veggies, and meats. It helps filter out some of the noise and usually gets you to better results more quickly.
posted by miratime at 10:41 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by miratime at 10:41 AM on January 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have tried and failed at trying to understand this as a whole. I, myself, have used MFP for over 5 years. The ONLY way I can get it to work for me and see results is to focus on the calories only portion and not the macros. I think that makes me super overwhelmed.
I do enter a custom recipe but doing it all by hand, and saving it. Once it's saved, I can pull it up again and use it over and over. So only the one time is it really a time consuming process but it's absolutely worth it.
Also, I use portion size by my eye. Everything should be the size of the palm of my hand at home; (which is what a personal trainer told my once and helped me a lot) but while eating out, I use the portion sizes given.
I know that doesn't help you immensely with using MFP but it's what works for me, and I've lost a significant amount of weight using it this way. (Almost 100lbs the first year; then I had a child and gained it all back - but since have lost another 50 using it this way too.)
posted by Sara_NOT_Sarah at 8:29 AM on January 26, 2016
I do enter a custom recipe but doing it all by hand, and saving it. Once it's saved, I can pull it up again and use it over and over. So only the one time is it really a time consuming process but it's absolutely worth it.
Also, I use portion size by my eye. Everything should be the size of the palm of my hand at home; (which is what a personal trainer told my once and helped me a lot) but while eating out, I use the portion sizes given.
I know that doesn't help you immensely with using MFP but it's what works for me, and I've lost a significant amount of weight using it this way. (Almost 100lbs the first year; then I had a child and gained it all back - but since have lost another 50 using it this way too.)
posted by Sara_NOT_Sarah at 8:29 AM on January 26, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
My meal is a specific custom meal that you make from foods you select from the database or the custom food you created. I. E. If you know every morning you have protein shake, two eggs, and a slice of toast you can save this as a meal and it makes it much easier to just check that rather than having to individually add all those things again.
When you scan something, chances are it's already in the database so just add that food to your meal. It'll usually be there in your "recent food" if you reuse it.
I found it VERY helpful in my first three weeks to weigh everything to get a sense of appropriate portion sizes. It was a hassle but I've learned to much better understand what proper portion sizes are and calories that come with it. It's a pain, but very well worth it to weigh everything,then develop a regimen of regular set precalculated meals.
posted by Karaage at 8:46 PM on January 24, 2016 [2 favorites]