MFP Frustrations

Has anyone lost weight using MFP as a food diary (and not relying on the calorie count)?

I keep reading posts about being accurate with your diary (including using a scale) is the only way to lose weight. I don't understand this concept, as I am not seeing how one can be so accurate down to each calorie, given there is so much variation in foods and exercise (the only way to truly know how many calories you're burning is to be in a fitness lab hooked up to a bunch of tests).

As an example, yesterday I had a slice of New York Style Pizza (spinach feta) from a local pizza place. When searching for that, a range of calories from 145 to 520 (or something like that). Additionally, the service size is 1 slice, which doesn't tell me anything because a slice from a 14" pizza is going to be quite a bit different than a slice from a 20" pizza. Most foods in the database have not been verified (I'm still not even sure what it means if the food has been verified). Do people just search the entire database and look for the most calories?

I think I've tried tracking in MFP a few times, but I get frustrated because it seems like I end up sitting around more trying to add/track items, that I was losing out on moving around. I also get frustrated because it seems like a lot of work for something that I can't depend on. For the most part, I eat pretty healthy, but tend to lose track of how much I'm eating (I'll have a handful of grapes, but then I'll go back multiple times because they taste good and I can't seem to stop). I've thought of looking into an app that you can photograph your food (I don't want to keep those photos in my regular photo database) so you can physically see the amount of food you're really eating (so it provides more of a cue to your brain).

Any insights would be appreciated.

Replies

  • mathandcats
    mathandcats Posts: 786 Member
    It is very hard to be accurate when eating out, even if you go to a chain that publishes calorie information (since your portion size may be larger than it says). If you eat out a lot, it will be difficult for you, also because restaurant food tends to be very high in calories. Basically, I would recommend eating out less if it is causing problems for achieving your goals. Based on your comments of eating pretty healthily, I'm guessing this isn't the primary problem, though.

    I almost never eat out, in part because of numerous dietary restrictions, but I do still eat prepared foods. It is tempting to say "oh, it's 250 calories, it says on the label" when eating something like a protein bar. But if you actually have a food scale and weigh it, it can often be 50-100 calories more than that, since it is safer for companies to give you more food than the label says, rather than less (in terms of preventing lawsuits). So it is important to weigh these things if you eat them often. If it is an occasional thing, it is not such a big deal.

    Regarding the grapes issue: try pre-logging a fixed amount that fits in your calorie goals, e.g. 200g of grapes. Measure out that 200g of grapes and put the rest away before you begin eating. In general, I find logging something before I eat it is extremely important to achieving my goals. I make a point of planning my day in the morning or even the night before - this might be vague, e.g. if I'm cooking something new for dinner, I may just pre-log "600 calories". But when it comes to actually eating dinner, I will calculate the calories in my new meal *before* portioning out what I will eat. This ensures I stay within my planned calories. Logging your own recipes is also extremely important to accurate logging - e.g. don't just log "1 cup lasagna". Instead, use the recipe builder and put in what you actually cooked (and I would of course recommend serving sizes in 100g, not cups).

    Also, you are correct that calculating exercise calories is a bit of a joke on MFP. Even a fitness tracker often hugely overestimates calories burned. What works for me is to have a set calorie goal every day - I do not adjust it based on exercise (as a result, my calorie goal is higher than recommended by MFP, since I'm not eating back exercise calories). I set my goal based on observed rate of weight loss - it takes some trial and error.
  • jdlatshaw wrote: »
    I never expected MFP to be totally accurate due to the many variations in food preparation. I'm satisfied with a "best guess" for tracking. I figure sometimes the estimate will be high and other times low, so over time it averages out. I find that looking up and tracking everything I eat makes me more aware of what I'm actually putting in my body every day. It has helped me cut down on portion size and snacking. Right now I'm happy with not gaining more weight, but my ultimate goals to to lose weight gradually trough better eating habits.

    ^^ I'm with jdlatshaw! I "guess" which is the most accurate/similar food to what I'm looking for. There is no way be EXACT with all your food, unless you make it all yourself, measure out every ingredient and every portion size. I get it, it's annoying, time consuming & not always accurate. But you can't expect MFP to know everything for you lol Also, with exercise. There's no way to MFP to know how many calories you are ACTUALLY burning.... it's all esitmates. If you want more personalized numbers, you'll need to pay for them somewhere else I'm sure.

    Basically, estimate, estimate, esitmate..... if you're losing weight, it's working! You don't need to know the exact numbers...... right?? If you arn't seeing the results your hoping for, you probably need to track a bit closer. (count all the grapes, ect...) It's a committment and will take time. But it's time well invested!!



  • motivatedmartha
    motivatedmartha Posts: 1,108 Member
    I try and track as accurately as I can - including weighing everything I eat at home. This has helped me develop an eye for portion size when I go out so that I can still eat at a sensible level. Where I do guesstimate when out I try and be absolutely honest with myself - I think I know in my heart the difference between a 300 cal slice of pizza and the sort of toppings that would take it way over that. If I look something up when out and am given a choice between 500 cals for a serving of cake or something and 750 I make a judgement looking at size and richness of the product and err on the side of caution. It's not perfect but only has to be right most of the time. Same with exercise - mfp exercise cals are not perfect but I don't eat all of them back - it works for me as a way of being aware of how active I've been each day and whether I can adjust my intake accordingly (my mfp is set to inactive as that is my preferred state!) I've lost weight comfortably doing this and am gently maintaining during a pause before my last 10lbs or so.
    I think people encourage accuracy of weighing and logging because it is SO easy to kid ourselves that a piece of bread is really only 50g, or that piece of chicken was a 'normal' portion. Including everything I ate for a while was a real eye-opener regarding things like dressings and even fruit - I would happily eat all the fruit every day but looking at the actual weight of fruit taught me to put the brakes on a little.
    But I do me and I think you should do it whatever way it works for you - the important thing is to learn how not to kid ourselves :D
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    Sure, there are plenty of variation inherent to foods themselves but why wouldn't I work to introduce less variance by ensuring that I'm logging with as much precision and accuracy as possible?

    For something like the pizza you described, I would at the very least consider the size of the pizza, the number of slices, and log it as a fraction of the whole pie from some place I would consider comparable knowing up front that choosing the eat food I'm not preparing is introducing some variance into my data to begin with.

    To you point about taking time to track being akin to losing out on moving around, I'm a huge proponent of pre-planning as much as my day as I can and pre-logging. It's really easy during the work week as I eat basically the same thing every day and build in some cushion for flexibility in portions. I'll pre-log what I expect a portion to be and can quickly correct to the weighed portion once it's prepared (i.e. 105 g bagel instead of the stated 113g, etc.). I

    In the context of how much NEAT contributes to your overall expenditure I'll break down my average TDEE:
    Average observed TDEE: 2545
    Estimated BMR: 1836 (72.14%)
    Adjustment for "Sedentary": 367 (14.42%)
    Remainder accounted for in exercise: 342 (13.44%)

    Granted, this is for my overall average, and doesn't take into account the fact that I don't workout daily, usually getting 4 lifting sessions in per week. So, lifting days are accounted for below (60 minute sessions).
    BMR: 1836 (65.5%)
    "Sedentary" adjustment: 367 (13.1%)
    Calculated Workout adjustment: 599
    Total lifting day TDEE: 2802 (21.4%)

    So, even on days on which I lift, almost 80% of my expenditure is due to me just existing and going about my daily life. In reality, how long are you really taking to log your food and how much does that time matter in the grand scheme of things?

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,615 Member
    I've tried several food tracking sites/programs ... this one is the easiest I've come across. And it really is easy ... isn't it. :)
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    edited August 2019
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    That’s the thing about the energy balance equation - there is some uncertainty on both sides of the calories in, calories out inputs. That doesn’t invalidate the whole equation though. Weight loss comes down to creating a consistent calorie deficit over time. You can do this without counting a single calorie, if you’re able to get to that calorie deficit without logging, estimating calorie burns - just by changing the way you eat and maintaining portion control.

    That said - you don’t have to be 100% accurate with every calorie logged in order to be successful. Consistency in logging, using common sense and reasonable estimates, practice, and monitoring plus adjusting based on your actual results can lead to great success. I always advise new users who are struggling to use a food scale but truth be told - I didn’t when I was losing or in my few years of maintenance. But I logged everything using good judgement and estimates and adjusted when I hit plateaus.

    I agree! Not weighing/logging works until/unless it doesn't. For some people, it always works, right through their weight-loss phase and into maintenance. For others? Not so much.

    In the end, your progress (or lack thereof) will determine which method is best for you to achieve your particular goals.
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,961 Member
    edited August 2019
    I do a lot of cross referencing with the nutritional info provided on restaurant websites in cases like your pizza. If its something I eat often i try to get the right amount the firdt time so that I have the right amount everytime. For something I eat occasionally its a bit less of a worry but I try to pick at higher (not highest) estimate from the database if I can't get specific info. However, I used to weigh everything. I've been here since 2013/2014 so I have a pretty good feel for most of my foods. I do ot weigh any more. Now, I log what I think is close and just adjust my daily goal till i see the rate of loss I want on the scale. If I think I'm eating 1800 a day but actually eating 2000, but still seeing the results I want, what does it matter? The point is the results. If 1800 isnt 1800 but Im losing my 0.4 lbs a week, then I'm still losing at my desired rate.

    I weigh some things. Such as bread (large variation in calories depending on where in the loaf the slice comes from), cereal (hard to eyeball), and high calorie foods like bananas, avocados, oils.. that kind of thing. Other things I go by the package and divide it.

    Oh and verified entries? Means nothing. Half of them are still wrong. Even barcode scans are wrong for me once a day.
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
    I use a food tracking journal. I write down what I eat and an estimate of how many calories each item is. I find it better for me than using the MFP logging system. Don't misunderstand...it is still work if you are serious about losing the weight.

    Much of what I eat is repeat things. Take for instance my bacon/egg/cheese sandwich is 320 calories. I have about 20 recipes that I use and I have a list of those and the calorie counts per serving. When I make a new recipe I use MFP's recipe builder to find the calories and determine how many servings that I can get from it and still stay within my goals.

    I have spent a lot of time on learning portion sizes and do a fairly decent job at it. On occasion I will weigh something but not very often. Grapes are one thing that I weigh...it always surprises me how much those little guys weigh. I had a small bowl full for a snack that came to 400g...160 calories!

    I still use MFP's guide lines to set my calories except I now eat within a range. I use my MFP figure as the bottom number and my maintenance number at goal weight as my top number. I also found that having regular times to eat has helped me from that "all day long snacking" that I was doing.

    As far as those things that you don't have a precise calorie count on I just use whatever the restaurant says or google to find something close. Those estimates are close enough for me and so far they have not interfered with my weight lose nor even slowed it down.

    I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there are pitfalls with this method. I know that at some point that it might quit working and I will either have to go back to weighing my food or be happy with the weight amount that I did lose. Also if you are in to tracking macro/micro this method doesn't work.

    The worse pitfall so far for me is getting to the end of the day and finding that I didn't eat enough. I have had several days that I was way below my goal...thus I have lost weight faster than what I intended and had to up my minimum calorie goals. No matter how you go about keeping track of what you are eating it is work. You just have to find a method that works for you and gives you the results that you want to see.

    I disagree that the problems that you are having with logging your food is an MFP problem. IMO it is yours expecting perfection. I have used MFP as it was intended and I lost weight. I just came to the realization that I needed to do things differently for now.

    I wish you luck on figuring out what will work for you.
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,464 Member
    Just a suggestion for weighing grapes. Not much in the scheme of things, but something if you want to tackle one thing at a time. I weigh an empty bowl. Put a bunch of grapes in it. Weigh it again. Write it down on a scrap of paper. Put the paper in the bowl. At the end of the day, weigh the bowl of grapes again. Subtract. Know the weight of grapes I ate. Takes longer to tell than to do.

    I eat a lot of peanuts. Weigh out a small handful. Put them on the cabinet. Log them. Eat from the cabinet, not the jar.

    Logging was SO HARD at first. But it got easier—and then easier, and easier. I still have occasional meals that I just say
    “What the heck” use fast add and take a wild guess, but they are fewer and farther between than they used to be.
  • cjays2019
    cjays2019 Posts: 14 Member
    Mine are mostly estimates.
    I track, but I don't lose sleep over inaccuracies, to a point. And I don't own a food scale. Its all just educated guessing on my part.
    For your pizza example, what I would do personally is just take a look at what the calorie range is, collectively, and then pick one that fell on the higher end of average. Higher end to be safe.

    Its worked thus far for me. I understand that it might not work for others, but I've had success with it. If I feel I'm not seeing the results I want, I adjust my calories to make up for the small indiscrepancies that come from my inaccuracy.

    I do the same thing. I always go higher if I have any doubts about how many calories I'm actually consuming. I don't have a good scale either so it's hard when cooking protein at home and trying to figure out if you are eating 3 oz or 4 oz. So I will usually go with 5 oz just to be safe.
  • Dorchi22
    Dorchi22 Posts: 57 Member
    I don't find counting calories hard at all, the scale is pretty accurate, and if I have multiple calories in the database for the same meal, I'll go for the highest number.