Did you lose more weight with Premium?

CrystalReaves78

I have been logging for almost 170 days straight and have lost 14 lbs. I need to either get premium or try something else so I am curious about what everyone is doing.

nanastaci2020

Premium does not burn extra calories. It removes ads and gives some extra versatility for customizing your diary.

What is your goal calories per day? How accurate is your logging? And how far are you from a healthy weight? You have lost about 2.5 pounds per month - Congrats! If you think you should be losing faster, then improving your logging accuracy or dropping your calories (but never below 1200 daily, and that may not even be a realistic long term goal for you).

janejellyroll

What features of premium do you think will impact your weight loss goals? There is nothing there that would personally help me.

durhammfp

I dropped 35 lbs (from 202 to 167) in about 6 months, and then dropped an additional 10 lbs during the 6 months after that... all on the free ad-based version. I have never paid for the premium service. I never saw the usefulness of it.

HeidiCooksSupper

I pay for premium because I like the number and diary customizing options and because I can afford it. Also, between it and my ad blockers, I don't have to wade through ads. Otherwise, it makes no difference.

If you are not losing weight to your satisfaction, check that you are weighing and measuring correctly and are choosing log entries that are correct. If you are bored with the way you eat, choose a different way to eat. You will find folks on here following all sorts of patterns and choices of food. Same with exercise choices. If you are bored with what you a doing, do something else. You are bound to find someone else doing it here.

ritzvin

Unless you've tried to change a setting (that would be useful to you personally), and couldn't because it's marked premium, then (other than Ads) there won't be any difference.

I have premium and do use it. Mostly features that I find useful for macro tracking. (I have it set to do protein and fat by grams rather then %, the dashboard is customized to show remaining protein and fat to reach what I set as minimum, and I have it set to allot all exercise calories to carbs rather than changing my gram-based minimums. (these particular features would be of more minimal convenience to someone who's not an athlete).

For some, it might be convenient to adjust different daily goals on different weekdays (but once again, would be of more use to an endurance athlete with long sessions always on the same day - where a humongous plethora of exercise calories comes in on 1 day that they would want to split into the leading day and following day without re-checking the weekly average numbers).

The settings are all visible for free users (just not changeable), so if you haven't come across that problem, you won't see a difference with premium.

cmriverside

I lost 80 pounds before there even was a Premium. I didn't have a Fitbit. I didn't even have a body-weight scale until I had about 20 pounds left to lose. It was easy to lose weight when I had a lot of weight to lose, it was that home-stretch that took focus.

Log food. Get good at it. Learn about nutrition and your personal trigger foods. I would say macros are important too - at least making sure to get enough protein and fat.

I would not pay for it...I don't even want the paid features. They don't hold value for me.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

MaltedTea

I've used Premium since joining in JAN2020. What makes me lose more weight with the paid service is the fact I know I'm paying for it 😂

It motivates me to make the most of the app. So far, so good as I'm more than halfway to goal.

Unless losing money motivates you to lose weight (which has been studied/researched, btw) stick with "freemium." There's a few extras on this side (the walking plans come to mind) but only you can decide if the extras will motivate you beyond where you are at now.

AnnPT77

I believe premium has more "Workout Routines" and "Plans" available in the Android/iOS apps (not on the web) compared with free MFP. If you're the sort of person who likes structured advice like that, and prefers not to go to the web (or ask in the forums) to seek out something free that would work for you, that might be a factor. Only you know whether that would be valuable to you. Personally, I'm bad with "other peoples rules" , so I don't use those features.

As others have said, there's more diary customization available (variable daily goals, more fine-grained macro settings, etc.). These might be useful to someone who's very inclined to dig into nutrition, or who follows a specialized kind of diet. (The food database is the same one as in free MFP, BTW.)

So, there are some potentially good features, but there's no magical feature that will inherently make weight loss go faster. It's still about personal habits and commitment.

I admit, for some people, simply putting money on the table gets them a little more engaged/committed. If that sounds like you, maybe it's something to consider.

I have premium now, but lost around 50 pounds at age 59-60 (while hypothyroid, if that matters - I think it doesn't ), and maintained for around 4 years afterward, just using the free MFP. It worked fine. I've only had premium for a few months. Like I said, some nice features, but nothing mandatory or magical, for the average person.

14 pounds in around 24 weeks is positive progress. Are you wanting to go faster? Feel like things are stalled? What do you perceive as the roadblocks to your goals, that you hope premium might help with?

thelastnightingale

I pay for premium because I find it useful to note down when I ate something, not just what I ate. I don't use any of the other features. I'm probably wasting a large chunk of my subscription, but I could afford it, and the one feature I use is helpful to me.

I'd probably recommend premium to anyone with variable calorie goals, i.e. for anyone with set work out days or who follows an IF type diet. But on the whole, there's not a lot in it - the free version will suit most people.

Premium doesn't actually give you willpower or help you burn the calories any easier. Don't assume it's a magic solution, or you'll be disappointed!

Diatonic12

You could try joining one of the groups and/or participating on the forum. Connection with others really does help.

PAV8888

Is there some rule that says that successfully applying a 290 Cal to 300 deficit for a good 170 days is something to snear at, and somewhat of an inferior accomplishment?

I don't miss any set of 14lbs I've unloaded and some of them were unloaded at half that speed.

How far above the top of "healthy" BMI are you?

How much deficit do you believe you're applying on a daily/weekly basis?

How much are you eating on average every day?

How many partially or totally unlogged days have you had during the past month?

Is losing 14 lbs worse than not losing any, or gaining 5?

Don't snear at success!

Tweaking, if there is room to do so in a way that is long term sustainable is another story.

Making things so hard you end up giving up would be unsustainable and counterproductive.

Removing ads makes my blood pressure go down; but does not improve my caloric deficit!

yirara

CrystalReaves78 wrote: »

I have been logging for almost 170 days straight and have lost 14 lbs. I need to either get premium or try something else so I am curious about what everyone is doing.

So you lost 17lbs in about 6 months? That's good, depending on how much you have to lose. If you only have a little to lose then weight loss simply is slow. May I ask what your current and goal weight are? Do you use a foodscale in grams for everything that contains calories? Do you make sure the database entries you use are correct?