Newbie in the house

mcgsarah66

Hi all. I new to MFP looking to lose fat & weight. I’ve changed my daily focus to calories & protein but am a bit concerned about sugar as I love snacking on fruit. I suppose going over my sugar with fresh fruit is better than going over because of chocolate #upfordebate

One question I need to ask…if I’ve tracked a full meal but don’t eat it all, do I have to add any leftovers I have the next day again if I haven’t gone back & adjusted the original meal. So if I have tracked 150g of chicken, only eat 100g cos I’m full, do I need to add the 50g leftover when I have it the next day? 🧐🧐🧐

AnnPT77

mcgsarah66 wrote: »

Hi all. I new to MFP looking to lose fat & weight. I’ve changed my daily focus to calories & protein but am a bit concerned about sugar as I love snacking on fruit. I suppose going over my sugar with fresh fruit is better than going over because of chocolate #upfordebate

Sugar gets a lot of attention because many people consume too much of it as a proportion of their calories/nutrients, causing them to either need too many calories in order to get good nutrition (and to feel full!), or end up getting poor nutrition and feeling hungry at appropriate calories.

If you read the details (not just the headlines), mainstream health bodies like USDA/FDA, NIH, WHO are suggesting people limit added sugar, and aren't too concerned about inherent sugar, like that in fruit, no-sugar-added dairy, veggies and such. Their reasons for concern are the ones I mention in the prior paragraph, plus risk of dental cavities, basically.

Beyond that kind of thing, sugar IMO doesn't have magic evil super-powers. (People who are already diabetic or insulin resistant, or have other relevant health conditions, do have special reasons to limit/manage it, though, of course.)

I ate more than MFP's default sugar goal all the way through weight loss, when the only added sugar I ate most days was a single 30-calorie tablespoon of all-fruit spread that had concentrated apple juice well down the ingredient list, and concentrated juice is "added sugar". The other sugar in my total was inherent sugar from whole fruit, veggies, and no-sugar added dairy foods.

I lost weight fine, 50-some pounds in just under a year. Nowadays, in year 7 of maintaining a healthy weight, I eat somewhat more sugar, with no major impact on maintaining. (I have more calories available to add treats while still getting the nutrition I target as my basic goal).

Some people here find that they do better even during loss to include some small treat daily . . . yes, even chocolate. A popular option for that is some kind of small individual chocolate that's inherently sort of portion-controlled, vs. opening up a whole big bar and being more psychologically tempted! YMMV on whether to moderate chocolates or put them off limits - it's pretty individual. But chocolate isn't a deal-breaker for weight loss, either, within reason.

I'd be surprised if it happens, but if you find that your fruit-eating sparks your appetite/cravings rather than feeling filling, that might be a reason to limit fruit . . . but that part is very subjective, and you'll learn from experience.

One question I need to ask…if I’ve tracked a full meal but don’t eat it all, do I have to add any leftovers I have the next day again if I haven’t gone back & adjusted the original meal. So if I have tracked 150g of chicken, only eat 100g cos I’m full, do I need to add the 50g leftover when I have it the next day? 🧐🧐🧐

This is a personal convenience question.

For sure, your body doesn't reset at midnight, even though the MFP diary does. It's just a question of accounting. For sure, if you don't adjust the day before for the amount not eaten, but still add it back the next day, you're double counting it as intake. That will distort your data if you want to be able to use it later to fine-tune your loss rate based on calories logged vs. weight change experience . . . a thing that can be valuable to do, strongly recommended, once you have a few weeks of experiential data.

The calculators spit out an average calorie-needs value for similar people, but we're not averages, we're individuals. Calculators like MFP will be close for most of us, but a little high/or low for some, and surprisingly far off for a rare few. Until you look at your experience data, you don't know how average you are, and knowing that can be useful as you go on.

In the MFP phone/tablet app, you can look at your weekly average net and total calories via the Nutrition menu. Many people here manage their eating to those weekly numbers, either because they want to eat a little more on hungry days than sated ones, because they want more calories on the weekend, or because of things like your "eating leftovers" scenario. I don't know of a convenient way to see that total in web MFP, but the same concept applies: If you average out to your goal calories over a few days to a week, your body weight results will be the same.

Personally, I'd either adjust the not-eaten or not log it when eaten the next day, so the cumulative data is more accurate. Only you know whether you want the daily totals to be more precise for some reason, or prefer the convenience of just eating the overage the next day.

Best wishes for success!

mtaratoot

mcgsarah66 wrote: »

One question I need to ask…if I’ve tracked a full meal but don’t eat it all, do I have to add any leftovers I have the next day again if I haven’t gone back & adjusted the original meal. So if I have tracked 150g of chicken, only eat 100g cos I’m full, do I need to add the 50g leftover when I have it the next day? 🧐🧐🧐

That is a really easy way to do it. It's already logged, and you don't have to do any "balancing of the books" to make it work. It works even better if you step back from the daily numbers and look longer term, like weekly averages. The only thing to keep in mind is that you might end up being "under" on that second day if you are adding food that doesn't need to be logged and don't feel like eating more. That may actually not be very likely; if you are eating at a deficit or maintenance, your hunger should catch up.

A little secret: sometimes if I have more "treats" than I should, and by "treats" I usually mean something like potato chips, I usually go over later in the evening. In some cases I'll go ahead and eat them today and log them tomorrow knowing I can make up for today's excess tomorrow. It still works. Like @AnnPT77 says; your body doesn't press the re-set button at 0:00 hours. If I started eating something at 23:55 and didn't finish until 00:15, which day would I log it? It doesn't matter!