Inaccurate Caloric Count? How does myfitnesspal calculate calories? Am I doing my math wrong?
cajayonabigail
Posts: 1 Member
Facts
1g of Protein = 4 Calories
1g of Carb = 4 Calories
1g of Fat = 9 Calories
If these facts are true why is the calorie count wrong on myfitnesspal?
According to my input, my caloric total should be (75 x 4) + (49 x 9) + (139 x 4) = 1,297 Calories. NOT 1,073 Calories. My remaining calories should be 3 Calories.
Can someone please explain or is this a bug?
1g of Protein = 4 Calories
1g of Carb = 4 Calories
1g of Fat = 9 Calories
If these facts are true why is the calorie count wrong on myfitnesspal?
According to my input, my caloric total should be (75 x 4) + (49 x 9) + (139 x 4) = 1,297 Calories. NOT 1,073 Calories. My remaining calories should be 3 Calories.
Can someone please explain or is this a bug?
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Replies
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MFP is wrong a lot. If you focus on hitting your macro goals instead of just calories you'll be good. Somehow here you can be over macros and under calories which is right
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The calories are the accurate number and the one you should pay attention to, generally. Macro numbers are sometimes not put in correctly or rounding can make a big difference (for example, look at the tuna where twice as much gives you twice the protein, but not twice the fat -- that's because it's actually less than 1 g of fat and rounded up). Also there will be more carbs than cals, since there's a deduction the USDA has to account for fiber, which is in the carbs number but doesn't really have the same calories as non fiber carbs.
If you just used macros and not cals here, you would be undereating.8 -
MFP is wrong a lot. If you focus on hitting your macro goals instead of just calories you'll be good. Somehow here you can be over macros and under calories which is right
No...the issue is that most database entries are user entered...some entries are accurate and some are not. Some people may enter the correct calories but not enter the macros correctly. MFP isn't actually calculating anything at all...it's just displaying the data from whatever entries you chose.14 -
cajayonabigail wrote: »Facts
1g of Protein = 4 Calories
1g of Carb = 4 Calories
1g of Fat = 9 Calories
If these facts are true why is the calorie count wrong on myfitnesspal?
According to my input, my caloric total should be (75 x 4) + (49 x 9) + (139 x 4) = 1,297 Calories. NOT 1,073 Calories. My remaining calories should be 3 Calories.
Can someone please explain or is this a bug?
MFP doesn't calculate calories. It simply displays the data from whatever database entries you have chosen...there is zero calculation being performed.8 -
Some database entries are inaccurate. If precision matters to you, vet your choices from the database against an authoritative source, like the USDA food database, and/or the product label in your hand.
Recognize that rounding error still happens; and that the "calories per gram of X macro" are not necessarily exactly the same across different variants of the same macro, just close enough; and that some imprecision is legally allowed in food labels (in the US, some values may be off by 20%).
If one food has 3.1g protein, and another has 3.3g protein, for example, that's 6.4g, and it will show up in whole numbers are 6g. That's the idea behind the rounding part.
Also, macronutrients, in one sense, are not a well-defined thing, but rather big groups of things with a similar metabolic role and similar calories per gram. "Proteins" are really a combination of a bunch of different amino acids, for example. That's the "different but close enough" part.
Finally, though the day you show doesn't have any obvious sources, I'll mention this for completeness: Alcohol is not a carb, protein, or fat. It's it's own category, and calories are about 7 per gram of alcohol. It's like a pseudo-macro. Some sources call it a macronutrient, but it's hard for me to think of it as "a nutrient" because it's not nutritious. (I still drink some sometimes anyway.) Some food products include alcohol, without being something we think of as alcoholic, and can contribute to a calorie total. Example: Vanilla extract.
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I think the issue here is the fat grams listed for one half an avocado. It should be more like 12 grams of fat. That would put it in line with the 120 calorie count and account for 180 of the additional calories you see when you multiply out your macros.3
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In addition to what's already been said, US nutrition labels very recently (2019, I think?) changed how carbs are reported and figured into calories - as @lemurcat2 mentioned, carbs from fiber are subtracted out of the calorie count because your body can't actually access most of that energy. This is a recent change; the largely user-contributed database contains about 15 years worth of data, so the vast majority of the entries are going to report carbs the old way, without accounting for indigestible fiber. There are no database moderators going through and updating this information, and macros were not always required to be reported when adding a food to the database. If you're going to use MFP to track macros, you really need to triple-check and make sure the entries you're using contain correct and accurate macro information.3
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bethann551 wrote: »I think the issue here is the fat grams listed for one half an avocado. It should be more like 12 grams of fat. That would put it in line with the 120 calorie count and account for 180 of the additional calories you see when you multiply out your macros.
I think you're on to something...
It is also a user-created entry.
What is a large avocado anyway? This is a question I have not had to ponder since I got a food scale. While there are no entries for "Haas" avocado, I'm guessing the admin-created California entry would be best to use.
While there are big differences for the values of HALF California and non-specified entries, if one uses weights instead there are no differences in the macros and only 7 calories difference, which would be attributable to rounding.
Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.
To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
The USDA changed the platform for their database in 2019 and it is unfortunately a little more difficult to use. I uncheck everything but “SR Legacy” - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered.
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)
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Your avocado is wacko
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The 4, 4, 9 cal/g values are rounded and inexact too. http://www.ncc.umn.edu/products/nutrients-nutrient-ratios-and-other-food-components/primary-energy-sources/4
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Just curious, why is your protein intake so high?
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Just a comment - there are 2 fluid ounces of rolled oats logged. Which aren't a liquid, and even if that was 2 ounces of rolled oats it would be far more than 67 calories. That's wonky.5
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The stats you've shown for those food values are suspicious. Best to use another verified database to doublecheck.
I've come across user-inputted values for food that were way off.
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My daily calorie count doesn’t even add up
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chrisduncanlive wrote: »My daily calorie count doesn’t even add up
It looks like they add up to me. 213+179=392 Breakfast. 499+213=712 lunch.0 -
If you're talking about totals, 392+712 should be your total eaten, i.e., 1104 calories. That, plus the 259 calories remaining, should add up to your goal (including any exercise calories you logged or your tracker synched). So, your goal for the day would be 1363.
I'm assuming the problem isn't with that (because you didn't show the total, or mention your goal). I'm assuming the problem isn't with the cross-foot of macros to calories, because earlier posts in the thread explain why that may not add up.
That leaves me wondering if you're misunderstanding what the 259 calories are, though of course I don't know that for sure. If you have 259 calories remaining, you should eat something close to that, to keep your target weight loss rate, as a generality. It's OK to eat a lot under goal on the odd non-hungry day, but it's not a good practice to leave nearly 20% of your calories uneaten routinely.2 -
Macros will never add up, they are always rounded to the nearest whole number. If the calories are fine, you are fine0
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I pay for MFP and expect it contain an accurate database of food counts. I am so disappointed that I can't rely on it to be accurate. It is supposed to make tracking your food intake easy, it doesn't. Instead I have to look up all the data elsewhere and then enter my own. I could do that in a spreadsheet for free. Is there a way to get the company to fix this??? How do I contact them?0
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The database is crowdsourced and gigantic, highly unlikely they will fix anything.
It's some work at the start, but once you have your regular foods in your Recent list, it becomes easier2 -
So many factors:
Industry variance: Nutritional facts are FDA approved, but the law allows a margin of error up to 20 percent.
Human error: Database input by humans. No need to explain this one unless you really don't know this
Conclusion: Do the best you can, and while you weigh yourself for data, look at YOUR BODY COMP OVER 1-2 WEEKS!!!0 -
Aside from what everyone else has said, it’s worth noting that the macro content of food is not actually consistent. Salmon has widely varying amounts of fat depending on whether it’s wild caught or farmed, the type of salmon and where it’s from. There is no way to be accurate, so even the food labels on the packets are an average. Watermelon will vary hugely in calories (as a percentage rather than total as it’s low in cals generally) depending on how dense the flesh is i.e. how much water it received when growing. Apples have hugely different amounts of sugar between varieties, and from year to year (depending on sunlight, water, nutrients and pests). Food is not static so actually there can never be an accurate reading from day to day.ragtopgirl47 wrote: »I pay for MFP and expect it contain an accurate database of food counts. I am so disappointed that I can't rely on it to be accurate. It is supposed to make tracking your food intake easy, it doesn't. Instead I have to look up all the data elsewhere and then enter my own. I could do that in a spreadsheet for free. Is there a way to get the company to fix this??? How do I contact them?
As others have said, pick an average from the entries or pick entries which closely fit any packet info and use those. It’s as accurate as you can be - without exactly preparing double the food intake, burning one half in a lab to measure the gasses given off and calculate the calorific value!
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ragtopgirl47 wrote: »I pay for MFP and expect it contain an accurate database of food counts. I am so disappointed that I can't rely on it to be accurate. It is supposed to make tracking your food intake easy, it doesn't. Instead I have to look up all the data elsewhere and then enter my own. I could do that in a spreadsheet for free. Is there a way to get the company to fix this??? How do I contact them?
The way I do this is I compare the results with what the usda food database has listed. If you are eating blueberries for example, the most accurate result is gonna come from the search “blueberries usda”0 -
ragtopgirl47 wrote: »I pay for MFP and expect it contain an accurate database of food counts. I am so disappointed that I can't rely on it to be accurate. It is supposed to make tracking your food intake easy, it doesn't. Instead I have to look up all the data elsewhere and then enter my own. I could do that in a spreadsheet for free. Is there a way to get the company to fix this??? How do I contact them?
The way I do this is I compare the results with what the usda food database has listed. If you are eating blueberries for example, the most accurate result is gonna come from the search “blueberries usda”
No, that one will be user entered, and subject to the same vagaries as any other user-entered item in the database. (I admit that "USDA" in the label implies that the person looked there, didn't just make it up. But we're still trusting their accuracy and typing skills.)
The actual entry that was loaded from the USDA database at MFP start-up would be "Blueberries - raw", with a default serving size of 1 Cup. That will not show up anywhere near the top if you search "blueberries USDA".
This one has a less bureaucratic name** than most (which is unhelpful), but I guessed it would be this one because of the 1 Cup default quantity for a thing it's inaccurate to measure in cups (not a guarantee of USDA source). Then, when I click the serving drop-down, there are quantities of different types: Counts ("50 berries", volume measures (cups, milliliters), weights (grams, pounds)). Sometimes there will be inch sizes, too, but not for blueberries. The different types of serving sizes is a sure sign. (Even some of those show a dramatically inaccurate calorie level for one or two of the calories, due to some long-ago database updates, I'm told.)
** Example of more typical name "Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average".
/pedantic0 -
ragtopgirl47 wrote: »I pay for MFP and expect it contain an accurate database of food counts. I am so disappointed that I can't rely on it to be accurate. It is supposed to make tracking your food intake easy, it doesn't. Instead I have to look up all the data elsewhere and then enter my own. I could do that in a spreadsheet for free. Is there a way to get the company to fix this??? How do I contact them?
You can also do MFP for free and it's not materially different than the paid version. I've been using this site for 10 years and never paid a dime. The database is user based crowdsourced. It's the same database in the free vs "premium" version. I've never entered my own stuff, but I have had to look at different entries to find the correct one that matches the nutritional label I'm looking at. I used USDA when looking up whole foods. Part of the problem is user error...the other part of the problem is different labeling in different parts of the world for the same product. Another issue is that people assume this to be some kind of exact science...and it's not. The macro calorie distribution isn't exact...it's an estimate. Foods aren't exactly XXX calories and blah, blah, blah macros...the same size ribeye steak is going to vary in fat content and protein content for example. Never mind that nutritional labels and restaurants are allowed error margins of up to 20%.1 -
ragtopgirl47 wrote: »I pay for MFP and expect it contain an accurate database of food counts. I am so disappointed that I can't rely on it to be accurate. It is supposed to make tracking your food intake easy, it doesn't. Instead I have to look up all the data elsewhere and then enter my own. I could do that in a spreadsheet for free. Is there a way to get the company to fix this??? How do I contact them?
You file a trouble report through the Help function, or post (or support an existing post) here:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/feature-suggestions-and-ideas
I hope you realized that basic MFP is free? There are some good features in the for-pay premium version, but they're not essential to most people for weight management.
Speaking for myself hereafter, not directly to your question:
I have pretty good spreadsheeting skills, plus a long career history as a system designer/developer, and there's no way I could set up a spreadsheet that would be as easy or quick as using MFP, even in the long run, let alone the short run. After a short time getting used to the app, I spend maybe 10 minutes a day logging food with adequate accuracy to lose weight (obese to healthy weight) and maintain (for 6+ years since loss). YMMV, of course.
I think what you're looking at here is a design tradeoff. MFP has a huge database, and with a little manageable checking, the accurate entries are in there. I rarely have to add a food; they're already there. That's because the database is crowd-sourced: The first person who wants to log a food adds it, then others can use their work.
Once I find a good entry, as long as I use it semi-regularly, it stays in my recent/frequent list and comes up first when I search/add foods. For sure, finding the accurate entry almost always takes less time than entering it from scratch, so this is a win, for me.
There are other apps that quality control their database accuracy more tightly, but they will tend not to be as comprehensive - not as many pre-existing foods. (I believe Cronometer is one of those, from what others have said.)
So, like I said: A design tradeoff between a crowd-sourced but very extensive database that has errors, versus a more reliably/consistently accurate database that isn't as comprehensive.
I don't think you'll convince MFP to change that philosophy. I, for one, wouldn't want them to change it. I only speak for myself though.0
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