Please hep me understand

leadersonthemove176
leadersonthemove176 Posts: 1 Member
in Motivation and Support
This is what I have left for the day per the app…

48 carbs and 16 Protien…. But is says I only have 103 calories left.


The math doesn’t add up. If I have those grams of carbs and proteins left I should have 256 calories left. Not what it says. 🤔

Has this happen to anyone else. I rely on this app a lot and this just makes me nervous

Replies

  • Corina1143
    Corina1143 Posts: 3,624 Member
    Check each food individually. It sounds like you found a bad entry.
    It could, of course, be rounding off. But that looks like a lot to be just rounding.
  • wyattjenniferl97
    wyattjenniferl97 Posts: 12 Member
    What is your fat total like? It is possible to eat more of one macro and not have enough calories left to eat the recommended amount of the others.

    I nearly always have left over carbs
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,826 Member
    edited December 2023
    Well, if you are over your fat goal, that's one possible reason.

    The other is that you have one or more inaccurate foods in your diary.
    Calorie counts are separate from macro counts, they're distinct data points that don't have any mathematical relation with each other in the MFP database. So one or more macros could be wrong, but the calories correct, or the inverse.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    It sounds like you've selected some erroneous entries from the database. The database is crowdsourced from other users, so you need to vet the entries you're picking.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    What the folks above said: Check your food entries as you log them. If it's too big a difference to be a rounding error, some food entry or entries was flaky. (IMU, US labels are allowed to be off by as much as 20% in the first place.)

    Mainly, though: Don't be nervous. It's not necessary to be exact on macros. Pretty close, on average over a few days: That'll be fine.

    Even then, if your key goal is weight management (as it is for many here), it's the calories that are the direct influence on body fat. The macros are about nutrition, which is also important for health, body composition (fraction of fat vs. lean tissue), energy level, and that sort of thing. But even for health, etc., close on macros is fine.

    Personally, I treat my protein and fat goals as minimums, don't care where carbs fall. (That's because protein and fats contain "essential nutrients" in the sense that our bodies can't manufacture them out of other nutrients, so we need to eat some for best results. Carbs are more flexible from that standpoint.) Many people here find that they get enough fat without paying close attention, which is great, but I'm not one of them.

    Even from a nutrition standpoint, it's fine to be over on protein or fats, as long as not persistently way under on the other one day in and day out. The effect on body weight would be indirect (via fatigue or appetite), if there's any effect at all.

    Nervousness burns no extra calories, and I think it feels icky. I would try to avoid it if possible. ;)

    Best wishes!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    There are settings you can use to see all foods, no matter what meal you're adding the item to.

    If you're on web MFP, it's here:

    21fx2ifvnnwz.jpg

    Set the circled drop-down option to "All Meals".

    In the MFP phone/tablet app, it's here:

    yamwefnxgngk.png


    Set as shown, it gives me the most recent items for all meals, but one can filter by meal. (Not sure what the default was - it's been too long since I started.)

    I think the setting should persist in both environments, once you choose what you want.

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