Take Advantage of MFP Tools

shcgiebs

MFP offers many tools to help us lose weight and get healthy. BUT...like and umbrella in the rain...it doesn't help if I leave it in the car. This is a great site, but it takes some practice maneuvering and learning your way around it. So play with it!

1. Logging foods is a no brainer. The database is pretty accurate and you can always add to it.

2. Logging exercise may take some doing. I still can find grocery shopping or laundry and trust me, they are exercise! Look at other sites and bookmark them. You can always add them to your exercises here.

3. Check in. Weigh and measure yourself at least on a weekly basis. Nothing sparks weight loss then seeing the numbers go down.

4. Use the bottom of your food diary to make personal notes about your day...stress eating, passed on dessert...whatever.

5. Blog and message! Pass along your success and tips or ask the community for help. Read what others are doing. You are not alone.

6. If you find someone or a group you like...JOIN or make friends! It's easier together.

7. Lastly...fill in your profile. So many times I see "I haven't filled this in yet". If you don't have the time to fill in the profile then you probably aren't making the time to do other things like logging food or working out.

If anyone has any other tips, please add them. Healthy advice is good advice!

Take advantage and use the tools here and you'll be fine. Good luck!

Lillymoo01

Some great tips but things like grocery shopping or housework should not be added as intentional exercise if you use MFP as intended as they are really just part of your day to day activity level instead.

L1zardQueen

Read the stickies at the top of the forums, tons of great information.

cmriverside

7. Lastly...fill in your profile. So many times I see "I haven't filled this in yet". If you don't have the time to fill in the profile then you probably aren't making the time to do other things like logging food or working out.

Yeah, on the whole "fill in your profile" thingy. My profile is locked down. I've had too many bad experiences online to deal with the whole "friend" thing and a detailed profile. That sounds pretty judgey to me.

I lost 70+ pounds and have kept it off. There is nothing written on my profile page and I don't belong to any Challenge or other groups on here.

Personal preference.

Amazingly I log my food and workout without any prodding from MFP users.

lynn_glenmont

shcgiebs wrote: »

MFP offers many tools to help us lose weight and get healthy. BUT...like and umbrella in the rain...it doesn't help if I leave it in the car. This is a great site, but it takes some practice maneuvering and learning your way around it. So play with it!

1. Logging foods is a no brainer. The database is pretty accurate and you can always add to it.

2. Logging exercise may take some doing. I still can find grocery shopping or laundry and trust me, they are exercise! Look at other sites and bookmark them. You can always add them to your exercises here.

3. Check in. Weigh and measure yourself at least on a weekly basis. Nothing sparks weight loss then seeing the numbers go down.

4. Use the bottom of your food diary to make personal notes about your day...stress eating, passed on dessert...whatever.

5. Blog and message! Pass along your success and tips or ask the community for help. Read what others are doing. You are not alone.

6. If you find someone or a group you like...JOIN or make friends! It's easier together.

7. Lastly...fill in your profile. So many times I see "I haven't filled this in yet". If you don't have the time to fill in the profile then you probably aren't making the time to do other things like logging food or working out.

If anyone has any other tips, please add them. Healthy advice is good advice!

Take advantage and use the tools here and you'll be fine. Good luck!

I've been using the site for six years, logging every day. I don't see what filling out a profile, which is for other people's benefit, not mine, has to do with my commitment to the things that do benefit it.

NovusDies

shcgiebs wrote: »

MFP offers many tools to help us lose weight and get healthy. BUT...like and umbrella in the rain...it doesn't help if I leave it in the car. This is a great site, but it takes some practice maneuvering and learning your way around it. So play with it!

1. Logging foods is a no brainer. The database is pretty accurate and you can always add to it.

7. Lastly...fill in your profile. So many times I see "I haven't filled this in yet". If you don't have the time to fill in the profile then you probably aren't making the time to do other things like logging food or working out.

If anyone has any other tips, please add them. Healthy advice is good advice!

Take advantage and use the tools here and you'll be fine. Good luck!

The DB has a lot of accurate entries and a lot of garbage entries as well. Navigating the DB and choosing the correct entries is not necessarily a "no-brainer". People should be careful adding to it to avoid adding additional garbage or incomplete nutrition information which is annoying.

I took some time about a month ago to fill in my profile. It feels good to finally have that done.

apullum

shcgiebs wrote: »

7. Lastly...fill in your profile. So many times I see "I haven't filled this in yet". If you don't have the time to fill in the profile then you probably aren't making the time to do other things like logging food or working out.

What in the world does filling out your profile have to do with whether or not you log food or work out? And how does filling out your profile help you lose weight?

Danp

The database is accurate if you take the time to find accurate entries. The database is also filled with some terribly inaccurate entries too. It takes a bit of time when you first start logging to find the accurate ones but once they've been located they'll be in your recent list for easier reference.

As for logging 'grocery shopping' and 'laundry' as exercise. That's not generally how MFP works which is why you won't find them in the list of exercises. The calorie goal MFP gives you already includes your normal daily activities (housework, shopping, washing the car, walking to the bus stop, doing your job) and the exercise calories are there as a bonus when you do purposeful and dedicated workouts. Adding calories for every little thing you do throughout the day will be double crediting calories and may have a negative impact on results.

I kinda disagree with the filling in the profile thing. As long as your relevant details are entered so that the algorithm can do it's thing then everything else is personal preference and really isn't a good indicator of a persons commitment or dedication to making serious long term changes.

shcgiebs

The profile is a personal choice. I like it because I can go back and say I accomplished that or I need to work on that. I also like it to see if anyone has my same likes/dislikes. I keep it closed to all but friends. As for the whole logging daily chores...I do that when I am so busy I can't do a proper workout. Again, a personal choice, but it helps me mentally feel like I accomplished something.

snickerscharlie

shcgiebs wrote: »

The profile is a personal choice. I like it because I can go back and say I accomplished that or I need to work on that. I also like it to see if anyone has my same likes/dislikes. I keep it closed to all but friends. As for the whole logging daily chores...I do that when I am so busy I can't do a proper workout. Again, a personal choice, but it helps me mentally feel like I accomplished something.

After all is said and done, stepping on the bathroom scale will be the judge of what works and what doesn't. The rest is just personal preference and fluff. If things are going the way you'd like for now, whatever works, works.

But if the scale isn't being your friend, that's when you have to re-visit your preferences, with emphasis on these points:

- food types and amounts consumed, making doubly sure the entries you've been using from the very flawed datatbase are actually the correct ones
- that you are weighing and measuring everything you eat and drink
- that calories from purposeful exercise aren't being inflated
- that weight loss isn't also being hindered because you're eating back calories earned through normal daily activities which are already included in your calorie goals here.

Td;dr? Inaccuracy only works until it doesn't.

cmriverside

shcgiebs wrote: »

The profile is a personal choice. I like it because I can go back and say I accomplished that or I need to work on that. I also like it to see if anyone has my same likes/dislikes. I keep it closed to all but friends. As for the whole logging daily chores...I do that when I am so busy I can't do a proper workout. Again, a personal choice, but it helps me mentally feel like I accomplished something.

You may think your profile is set to "friends only," but I just read it...so if you want it private you may want to check your settings.

I know you probably think that we need you to tell us what to do, but this site is for adults and I'd say if you are looking to give advice then find threads to post in where you have actual knowledge about a topic.

The things that I would suggest are helpful are 1.) Learn to log food accurately and do it until it's second nature and/or until you can look at food and know roughly the calories/macros in it. 2.) Step on the body weight scale.

:drinker:

lynn_glenmont

shcgiebs wrote: »

The profile is a personal choice. I like it because I can go back and say I accomplished that or I need to work on that. I also like it to see if anyone has my same likes/dislikes. I keep it closed to all but friends. As for the whole logging daily chores...I do that when I am so busy I can't do a proper workout. Again, a personal choice, but it helps me mentally feel like I accomplished something.

A couple of reasons you are getting push-back, totally aside from the specific content of your post are

(1) Just an IRL, unsolicited advice tends to be unwelcome on message boards.
(2) Your original post was couched not in terms of "this is my personal choice of what works for me." It was couched in terms of "this is what everybody should do because it worked for me."