A Mathematical Oddity

leebesstoad

I was just wondering if anyone has ever had this happen to them on MFP before. Today was a first for me.

I've been using MFP for 5 months now. It's been great. It's helped me lose about 35 pounds (now how do I stop is the problem -- I'm having to ramp up drastically).

But I entered all of today's food in my diary. After entering it, I was 4 grams over my daily target on carbs, 4 grams over on proteins, and 4 grams over on fat. And 10 calories below my target. Over by 4 grams each on carbs, protein and fat and under on the daily calorie target?

Anyone else ever have that happen? I know that means individual components are messed up, but I've never had it happen on a daily total before.

endoftheside

It happens to me in a noticeable way every couple of weeks or so, and I am sure more often but a small enough error that I don't notice. Most recently it was yesterday, where based on the green for the macros it seemed like I should have had more calories left, but what had happened was that the entry for movie popcorn I originally selected had a reasonable looking number amount of calories but was entered into MFP with 0 as the carb grams. When you enter food stats, it doesn't check that the fat+carb+protein grams match the total calories when converted from g to calories, so it can be wrong in either direction. There were some artichoke hearts I ate where it was entered with the calories entered as the GRAMS of fat--imagine the havoc that caused in my macros. :noway:

In addition to the entry errors, sometimes people who are only tracking calories or only tracking carbs will deliberately enter things with only their desired tracking variables included, and they accidentally end up in the general database.

DragonSquatter

I've seen particular items be very wrong with the calorie counts versus macro counts. My guess is that you may have a few entries that are off causing this discrepancy. It's very frustrating.

jstout365

It has more to do with incorrect or incomplete values being entered into the database versus bad math. I usually check the nutritional data before adding something new from the database since anyone can add things to it without much quality control.

leebesstoad

Thanks all. I've gone back, line item by line item. It isn't one item, it is almost every single item. There are 12 separate entries for the day. When calculating using the math (carbs & protein grams * 4, fat grams * 9), 10 of them are over the MFP calories, 2 are under. But if you look at the manufacturer's website, what is on MFP is straight from the manufacturer.

As an example: I use Arnold's Select 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins for sandwiches. Their website shows it at 100 calories. Consisting of 22 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein, and 1 gram of fat. (22+5)*4 = 108.+ (1*9) = 117 calories. Not 100. 17% too high. So which is right? Is it 100 calories or is it 117 calories?

If the same scenario repeated itself over and over, we'd all be in trouble. Because if you were on a 2000, calorie a day diet, and you ate 2000 calories according to the manufacturer's label, you would actually be taking in 2340 calories a day. That's a extra pound every 10 days. (sorry, my inner math geek is coming out).

So what are we to believe?

wild_wild_life

Thanks all. I've gone back, line item by line item. It isn't one item, it is almost every single item. There are 12 separate entries for the day. When calculating using the math (carbs & protein grams * 4, fat grams * 9), 10 of them are over the MFP calories, 2 are under. But if you look at the manufacturer's website, what is on MFP is straight from the manufacturer.

As an example: I use Arnold's Select 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins for sandwiches. Their website shows it at 100 calories. Consisting of 22 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein, and 1 gram of fat. (22+5)*4 = 108.+ (1*9) = 117 calories. Not 100. 17% too high. So which is right? Is it 100 calories or is it 117 calories?

If the same scenario repeated itself over and over, we'd all be in trouble. Because if you were on a 2000, calorie a day diet, and you ate 2000 calories according to the manufacturer's label, you would actually be taking in 2340 calories a day. That's a extra pound every 10 days. (sorry, my inner math geek is coming out).

So what are we to believe?

Interesting! Thanks for doing the legwork Add this to the list of reasons for "why aren't I losing weight??"

zornig

Thanks all. I've gone back, line item by line item. It isn't one item, it is almost every single item. There are 12 separate entries for the day. When calculating using the math (carbs & protein grams * 4, fat grams * 9), 10 of them are over the MFP calories, 2 are under. But if you look at the manufacturer's website, what is on MFP is straight from the manufacturer.

As an example: I use Arnold's Select 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins for sandwiches. Their website shows it at 100 calories. Consisting of 22 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein, and 1 gram of fat. (22+5)*4 = 108.+ (1*9) = 117 calories. Not 100. 17% too high. So which is right? Is it 100 calories or is it 117 calories?

If the same scenario repeated itself over and over, we'd all be in trouble. Because if you were on a 2000, calorie a day diet, and you ate 2000 calories according to the manufacturer's label, you would actually be taking in 2340 calories a day. That's a extra pound every 10 days. (sorry, my inner math geek is coming out).

So what are we to believe?

I wonder if they substract out the grams of fiber from the totals? I eat those sandwich thins too, so I really hope that the 100 calorie claim is accurate! I'm less concerned about the precise macro breakout.

FredDoyle

Manufacturers are allowed to be out around 10%. It's not an exact science. Figure out your maintenance. If you start gaining, eat less. Start losing, eat more.