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This article is quite accurate I think. I use MyFitnessPal on and off. It is easy - you just scan the barcode and it tots up the calories. MFP is excellent at
by mattlondon 4y ago
This article is quite accurate I think. I use MyFitnessPal on and off. It is easy - you just scan the barcode and it tots up the calories.
MFP is excellent at making you face up to what you are actually eating. At first it was a huge eye-opener for how many calories were in everyday things - like a slice of bread is 80-120 calories etc. The article mentions fruit juice too - that was a big one for me as well. I figured that since I was not eating loads of pizzas and burgers etc that my calorie intake was probably "normal" but boy was I wrong and MyFitnessPal really helped understand that. Likewise it was good for a reality check that the 20 minute run actually was only like 150-200 calories burnt, not 750.
That was good, but where it really helped though was in measuring stuff out, and to realise what a serving really was. The biggest culprit for me was breakfast cereals - 30 to 45g of cereal is not a bowl full - it is a fairly pathetic covering at the bottom of your bowl. For years I was probably having like 4 or 5 (... or more!) servings of cereal (i.e. a full bowl, like it looks on the packet or on TV adverts!) a day without realising.
I'd recommend people give it a try, if only for a couple of weeks to get a grip on what the calorific levels of some of your staples are, and what a serving actually looks like. It is eye opening.
- Blackthorn 4y agoJust want to note here that I recently switched off MFP for Cronometer because MFP had a literal week long outage and is architected in such a way that it must phone home in order to save anything like a recipe you make. So that was a whole week where I couldn't save a new recipe. I've found Cronometer to be a lot faster in every way, and actually has an up to date database and when you scan something it doesn't have, it lets you scan the label and updates the database. Highly recommend. Only problem is what's endemic to apps in general right now. They want a subscription instead of buying the app outright. That's gonna be a no from me, dawg.
- codemac 4y agoCronometer I found was missing lots and lots of food items and restaurants though, and that makes it harder to report. I unfortunately travel a fair amount and this means I can't just make restaurants a "cheat meal" some days. I try going to the grocery store while traveling, but it takes so much more time when I'm taking taxis and trying to cook in a hotel room. HOWEVER This is a lot of whining and excuse my brain is probably using to let me eat more when I travel.
- Blackthorn 4y agoYeah, it doesn't have much in the way of restaurants. Then again, unless the restaurant itself publishes the figure, I don't trust it. I haven't had too much trouble with missing food items since they are easy to add, I just wish they let you use the label scanner in the normal "make a custom copy" procedure.
- therealdrag0 4y agoCronometer won me for the crisp UX
- samatman 4y agoBurgers get a bad rap, it was actually using MyFitnessPal that showed this to me. There's no law says you have to get a fries and corn syrup drink with the burger, a burger and mineral water is a great meal, macros line up and I feel full for hours.
- voisin 4y ago> you just scan the barcode and it tots up the calories. A good tule of thumb is to minimize the number of things you eat with barcodes.
- edanm 4y agoErr, I use MFP as well and I don't know what you're talking about. Barcodes aren't only for whole meals, they're also food ingredients. When I cook at home, most of the stuff that goes into the recipe has a barcode.
- mattlondon 4y agoWe joke at home that when we're on "fatness pal" then we can only eat dust and sand, which is what I assume you are referring to since everything has a barcode. If you mean stay away from processed foods, then yeah readymeals and the like are best avoided. But pretty much everything has a barcode - raw chicken breast, raw fruit and veg, milk ... you name it - hell even salt and water have barcodes.