Accuracy of this app.

enriquen1

Hi all. New here. How accurate have you found this app in terms of nutrition and results? I am trying to balance all nutrition and stay within calorie goal. Was wondering how accurate you find the answer when you complete your diary

Shortgirlrunning

It can be very accurate but you have to be smart about how you choose a food entry because the database is user created so there are a lot of very wrong entries for various foods.

I use the bar scanner as much as I can over just searching for a food. If it’s something like fruits/veggies or the bar scanner doesn’t work I usually double check an entry against the usda database before using it. And sometimes I have to make my own entry because I can’t find a correct one (that’s pretty rare though).

I’ve lost 50 lbs using MFP though so I figure it’s accurate enough!

apullum

Exactly what part of the app are you talking about? Since you mentioned completing the diary, I’m guessing you mean the weight projections. Those are not accurate at all. Ignore them.

Your calorie goal is as accurate as the information you put in during your goals setup.

The database has good entries as well as outdated or just bad ones. You need to double check database entries against your food’s nutrition label. However, most people eat the same foods often, so you can pull them from your “recent” list once you’ve found good entries.

A lot of inaccuracy comes from user error, especially failure to use a food scale to weigh all food.

RunsWithBees

enriquen1 wrote: »

Hi all. New here. How accurate have you found this app in terms of nutrition and results? I am trying to balance all nutrition and stay within calorie goal. Was wondering how accurate you find the answer when you complete your diary

Notice when it gives you the prediction it says “If every day were like today”... that just doesn’t jive with reality because literally no two days will be exactly the same, much less entire weeks where you have the exact same intake and output of energy. It’s a really, really ROUGH estimate. The only way to get accurate results is to stay as close as you can to your calorie goals over a period of maybe 4-8 weeks and see what results you get then adjust your calorie goals according to your actual real results. Weight loss takes time, you will need loads of patience, patience, and more patience

enriquen1

Ty for the input. That is all very helpful

kshama2001

When I weigh my food on a digital food scale, eat the calories MFP gives me, eat most (but not all) of my exercise calories, I lose as expected over the course of a month.

callsitlikeiseeit

its as accurate as the database selections you choose and how you weigh and measure your food.

Katmary71

The food portion seems accurate since I started using a food scale. I do feel it greatly over-estimates the exercise calories for me or I would've lost a lot faster. The "in 5 weeks you would weigh" has never been right.

kristen8000

I find that if you tend to eat the SAME calorie amount each day (never going over or much under), the calculation is pretty accurate. BUT, the chances of you eating the same amount of calories EVERY DAY, is slim. Everyone has high and low days.

hesn92

It is accurate as long as you're smart about which entries you choose in the database. Any ol' person can add something to the database. If you're choosing more raw ingredients and using nutrition labels, it is pretty accurate. If you're doing a search for "chicken alfredo" and using some random entry then no it's not going to be accurate.

The exercise calories might not be so accurate, since they are just estimates and don't have any way of knowing exactly how hard you worked. I think they tend to overestimate.

nighthawk584

with a few adjustments with the settings over time, it has been very accurate for me. like others said, weigh all your food and don't trust any old entry in the MFP database.