MFP can be discouraging, and needs to change.

lisleihunter61

I know this is a recurrent theme, so my message is deep down, meant for the DEVELOPERS of MFP. I've been reading posts here for months and I'm finally ready to post. Huge thanks to those of you who post encouraging messages! I'm a 57-year old woman and I have been faithfully tracking every single bite and measuring my food for 5 months now. I'm using a fitness tracker too, and I only give myself credit for 50% of the active calories it states, because I just know how it is with me and weight loss. I exaggerate my caloric intake on MFP because I just know how it goes. I'm averaging 1,400 calories a day, which I feel able to sustain (but it is hard to socialize or go out with friends on that allowance). I'm really careful to balance protein, carbs, healthy fat and I'm following a low-carb Mediterranean diet, cooking almost all meals at home and taking my lunch every day.

I average 1 hour of exercise a day (bike to work daily, gym with weightlifting 3 x week and 21-minute HIIT sessions, 45-min run or long bike ride once a week. So, in 5 months, I've lost 18 lbs total (50% to my goal). That's awesome, and I just have to tell myself it's gonna be a long-term struggle to lost the remainder, and more importantly keep it off. Because I know from experience that if I EVER go back to a "normal" diet, like what is recommended for my level of exercise (about 2000 calories), all that weight I lost will come back twice as fast as I lost it. Because that's just how my body works - and apparently the same is true for lots of other people!

So, my beef with MFP is that it claims that I should be losing 2-3 lbs a week on this regimen, but in actuality it's .5 to .75 lb, with lots of plateaus and upward spikes along the way. That mantra about it being simple math with calories in versus calories used? Nope, that is a big fat lie. I *hope* I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. My clothes, energy and pants say yes, so that is what I'm trying to focus on - and YAY to all of you who encourage others with those thoughts!!!

So, here's the beef. Why, Why, WHY does MFP focus almost exclusively on the scale numbers? And why does it give insanely unrealistic estimates of what you should be losing? Why can't it give more realistic feedback, and use the trends it can obviously see in your weight loss journey to give you more realistic expectations when you finish your tracking at the end of each day? Because it takes a hell of a lot of dedication to track every. single. bite. And every. single. workout. Not to mention how much dedication it takes to stay on that regimen when everyone else around you is eating and drinking to their hearts content.

So huge kudos if you are sticking with it!!! Because it is a struggle every day. But feeling more energetic and healthy is the main reason I keep going.

MikePTY

I am a bit confused. Where/how is MFP telling you that you will lose 2-3 pounds a week? What is your weight, height, and activity level setting? You are losing almost a pound of week. Based on your age, goal, and caloric intake, a close to 1 pound loss on about 1400 a day is very close to what I have seen MFP generate for others. I will take a look at this and troubleshoot it for you if you can provide the number, but I think something is off somewhere in this.

The main thing you have to understand is that it is at it's heart, a math equation. MFP uses standard formulas based on the information you give it to create a projection of how many calories it takes your body to maintain and then how many calories to lose your desired rate of loss. This is based on the average person for your statistics. Since none of us are average and we are all unique, there will be slight variations and differences individually. But overall, MFP tends to be largely correct over a long term trend. However weight loss is not linear. It varies and changes a lot due to things like water weight fluctuation. So it never promises you that you will lose a specific amount every single week. That's impossible. Even the much derided "you'd weigh this in 5 weeks" feature, which is only a very rough estimate and not very accurate, uses 5 weeks because it knows that you will fluctuate within that time.

Weight loss is calories in vs calories out. I won't know until I see you stats, but your weight loss seems to be in line with what I would expect based on your calorie intake. So I am not sure why you are upset. 18 pounds of loss in 5 months is a good loss to be proud of.

LyndaBSS

I might have missed this in your original post, but are you weighing all of your foods?

JeromeBarry1

The intelligence, empathy and compassion even, you are requesting will eventually be offered as a premium feature. To now, web sites have been the brute force output of code monkeys and trained hamsters. (Sorry, guys. I'm metaphorizing). In the mid-term future, probably before legitimate life-extension therapies are commonplace, web sites such as myfitnesspal will use AI to understand and anticipate everything from your moods to your actions and results.

The rest of you pervs, settle down. Get a life.

lisleihunter61

Everyday when I finish logging, I get a message that says in 5 weeks, If every day is like today, I’ll weigh nearly 15 lbs less than I currently weigh. Obviously, it took me 4 months to get there, not 5 weeks. So maybe not giving that message would be a good idea since it’s wildly unrealistic. I almost gave up after the first 5 weeks when I had only lost 3 lbs. I’m glad I kept going.

As far as AI, that’s not what I’m seeking. Just a more realistic estimate and some encouraging messages about how I’ve done with meeting my goals would be helpful. I’m paying for the premium version by the way.

lisleihunter61

Lynda, I weigh items that are higher calorie, like pasta, meat, cheese. Veggies, fruit, milk, olive oil etc. I go by volume since weighing them is harder. But I’ve cut out pasta and rice anyway and substitute cauliflower.

MikePTY

lisleihunter61 wrote: »

Everyday when I finish logging, I get a message that says in 5 weeks, If every day is like today, I’ll weigh nearly 15 lbs less than I currently weigh. Obviously, it took me 4 months to get there, not 5 weeks. So maybe not giving that message would be a good idea since it’s wildly unrealistic. I almost gave up after the first 5 weeks when I had only lost 3 lbs. I’m glad I kept going.

As far as AI, that’s not what I’m seeking. Just a more realistic estimate and some encouraging messages about how I’ve done with meeting my goals would be helpful. I’m paying for the premium version by the way.

You mentioned that you eat back 50% of your exercise calories. Do you log 100% of them? If so, that could be part of the discrepancy. MFP is making that estimate assuming you in fact actually burned all of those calories, not that you burned half of them. It is only as good as the data you give it.

Without seeing your diary and knowing your stats, I am just making guesses.

lisleihunter61

Mike, in response to your message I checked my settings. My height and weight were correct. I weigh in once a week. I had it set on moderately active because I exercise 6-8 hours a week. Maybe I should change that? I have my loss goal as 1.5 lbs a week. I only pay attention to the total calories, not net so that I stick to 1400 regardless of how much I exercise.

chelny

You can also log your measurements (chest, hip, neck, whatever) and/or save progress pics. Perhaps using those options would be more encouraging to you than weighing weekly. Maybe just weigh yourself monthly? I don’t pay much attention to that end of day message “in 5 weeks...”. It’s assuming every day will be the same. For me, they’re not all the same.

MikePTY

lisleihunter61 wrote: »

Mike, in response to your message I checked my settings. My height and weight were correct. I weigh in once a week. I had it set on moderately active because I exercise 6-8 hours a week. Maybe I should change that? I have my loss goal as 1.5 lbs a week. I only pay attention to the total calories, not net so that I stick to 1400 regardless of how much I exercise.

The MFP activity level is meant for non-exercise activity. That is why exercise is added and calculated separately.

I put in 5'5 and 160 pounds as some dummy data to get BMR for you. If that is relatively close to your stats, it will be close enough for illustration purposes. That gives you a BMR of 1312. That is how many calories you burn by just existing. With you choosing moderately active, MFP used a 1.6 multiplier to get your maintenance calories. That makes your maintenance calories 2100, before exercise. So lets say you log exercise, MFP counts that as well. Lets say you put in 500 calories of exercise. MFP thinks you are burning 2600 calories for the day and only eating 1400. That is a 1200 calorie deficit, or about 12 pounds over 5 weeks.

lisleihunter61

Mike, I log 50% of active calories from my Iwatch, and that’s probably what gives me the estimate at the end of the day. But I don’t actually count those exercise calories because I’m keeping an eye on the total calories, not the net ones. I am usually a bit under the total goal calories each week.

The main victories are that I’m losing inches and I can lift a lot more weight at the gym. And I can bike up hills and run a lot faster. I’m really happy about all that. I just think the scale compared to the MFP estimator is a deflator every week and I dread that.

lisleihunter61

Mike, I’m 5’8” and 168. I think I’ll change it to sedentary and not log any exercise. We’ll see how that goes. Might be best to lower my expectations as far as possible.

LAT1963

Lis--one issue with some fitness trackers is that the calorie count they report is your baseline metabolism + your exercise. So if you exercise for an hour it may say you burned 300 calories, but if you just sat around for that hour maybe you'd burn 200 calories so you really only got 100 calories advantage by doing the exercise. For that reason it's a good idea to stick to the calorie goals regardless of what exercise you did.

Are you sticking close to the targets or under-cutting them? If you go too low you go into that fabled 'starvation mode' thing where your body won't let any fat loose.

Lastly at our age and gender thyroid and steroid metabolism problems are very common and it's possible some of the weight won't budge because you have an untreated medical problem.

Type 2 diabetes can also make it difficult to shake loose stored fat; if you have any suspicion of diabetes or 'pre-diabetes' (peripheral insulin resistance), then consider going on Atkins (or other low-carb scheme) for a few (3?) months so your response to insulin improves--if you don't like that diet long-term you can probably go back to straight calorie counting after you've reset your insulin response.

But the most common problem is that mfp only seems to work if you weigh all your food to get an accurate calorie estimate.

PS: I have a suspicion that corn syrup is a big causative contributor to 'the obesity epidemic'. So read labels and see if avoiding it helps you.

PPS: there's something dieters on MFP are calling the "whoosh", which you can probably find by searching the site on that word. The hypothesis is as you start losing fat, your fat cells plump up with water while awaiting a chance to re-fill with fat. It takes awhile for them to 'realize' that they are not going to be called upon to use that storage space, so then they dump that water and reclaim the resources used to retain the space. It's a way of explaining plateaus and sudden drops in weight.

BuddhaBunnyFTW

Everything seems to be pretty accurate to me. I weigh my food.

lisleihunter61

LAT- thank you for all those insights - really, really helpful, especially the part about prediabetes. My blood sugar was a bit high last year. Also, the difference in calories between resting and active metabolism. The iwatch distinguishes between those, but it’s not clear if mfp does? I do feel like my fat cells are sitting there just waiting to refill again! I’ve been trying not to go too low on calories. Thanks for these tips!

colorfulcoquette

lisleihunter61 wrote: »

Mike, in response to your message I checked my settings. My height and weight were correct. I weigh in once a week. I had it set on moderately active because I exercise 6-8 hours a week. Maybe I should change that? I have my loss goal as 1.5 lbs a week. I only pay attention to the total calories, not net so that I stick to 1400 regardless of how much I exercise.

lisleihunter61 wrote: »

Mike, I log 50% of active calories from my Iwatch, and that’s probably what gives me the estimate at the end of the day. But I don’t actually count those exercise calories because I’m keeping an eye on the total calories, not the net ones. I am usually a bit under the total goal calories each week.

You are double dipping with entering your exercise calories since you already selected moderately active based on the amount of activity you do. You can state your aren't eating them but you are since your exercise calories are included in your 'moderately active' setting and since you state you are eating close to the goal MFP set for you. You just aren't eat the additional ones you added which it sounds as though you shouldn't be doing unless you are set to sedentary.

nutmegoreo

lisleihunter61 wrote: »

Mike, I log 50% of active calories from my Iwatch, and that’s probably what gives me the estimate at the end of the day. But I don’t actually count those exercise calories because I’m keeping an eye on the total calories, not the net ones. I am usually a bit under the total goal calories each week.

The main victories are that I’m losing inches and I can lift a lot more weight at the gym. And I can bike up hills and run a lot faster. I’m really happy about all that. I just think the scale compared to the MFP estimator is a deflator every week and I dread that.

Did you start exercising at the same time as starting the diet? Exercise is notorious for causing water retention (some activities such as strength training are worse than others). The water retention masks weight loss. This is a natural process, but certainly can be frustrating when you look at the scale.

You have been doing well. Maybe just stop looking at that 5 week projection, I find it to be highly inaccurate, mainly because I don't eat the same each day, and my activity levels vary each day. You have been losing, personally, I think you should just leave it all alone right now and keep doing what you are doing.

lisleihunter61

Interesting, thanks for all your ideas on this. I’ve been going to the gym for almost 10 years 3 times per week and biking regularly, but have about doubled my exercising overall when I started dieting. Spring cleaning! I agree with you - no more of that 5 week thing anymore. If I can keep going that’s the main goal!! Thanks everyone for your tips and suggestions!!