Thursday July 4 Check In
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deskjockey925
Posts: 4,975 Member
- Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes?
- Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day?
- Did I keep track of all the calories I ate or drank?
- Pass days (3+ is fine if you reach the max)?
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Replies
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🇺🇸Happy 4th of July, UAC Friends!🇺🇸
The 4th of July is Independence Day in the US, and many of us will be off work and perhaps attend gatherings with tempting foods. The 4th of each month is also when we remind each other of the importance of food tracking. I’m writing this opener while returning home after a month filled with travel. I didn’t track for many days since I attended social meals with limited control over my food choices. Not tracking was an interesting experience after almost one year of being very rigid about my food intake. I can see the upsides of taking the occasional break from exerting control over what we eat, like seeing that nothing terrible will happen when we’re not always perfect. But - I am also looking forward to returning to the “safety” of my routine, which involves weighing all my foods and aiming for certain nutritional goals (in my case, a small calorie deficit and certain protein, calcium, omega-3, and vitamin goals). Whilst not tracking, my weight has unsurprisingly crept up a few pounds (so many interesting foods to sample!). But tracking over the last year and participating in the UAC have given me the confidence that I’ll be able to lose these pounds again within a few weeks, so I’m not particularly stressed about it!
For those newer to tracking, feel free to look at our “tips” in the resources.
For today’s discussion:
Given how many people have left MFP, do you still use MFP to track or have you moved on to using other tools (e.g., other apps or pen and paper)? What are the main benefits of your chosen method for you?
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I've used MFP to track my food for most of nine years. The more foods, meals and recipes I load, the easier it gets. I especially like being able to track what I need to be careful with (carbs) or need to get plenty of (calcium) as well as the calories. I'm not sure what features are only for premium paid users. I like the ease of downloading recipes and copying meals to another day or meal. I like being able to set goals for every meal or snack. I just started using the feature of setting up a different goal for the one day of the week on which I know I can't stay under my every other day goal. For me it works best if I record all my planned eating early in the day and if I need to make a change, record the change before eating that food. One feature it doesn't have is the ability to cut and paste a meal from one meal to another or delete a whole meal at once. So if I accidentally record on the wrong day I have to delete the meal one item at a time. Other than that, I have no complaints.4
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@Lynne10010
Thanks for the insights! There is actually a way in MFP to edit entire meals, at least using the app: at the very top left corner of the diary, you can click “edit”, which brings up a checkbox in front of each category name and individual items, you can check and delete from your day what you like. As for copying meals, I sometimes use the little dots at the right side of the meal to copy entire meals to different days and to create “meals” to save that I can pull from later. I sometimes also save meals just to consider macros of a meal. I rarely use the desktop version, which appears to function a little differently.
I semi-transitioned to using cronometer myself, but may return to MFP for tracking. I like the nutritional insights on cronometer, but find the calorie budget on MFP more intuitive and have a lot of practice tracking on MFP. When I was in Europe recently, cronometer didn’t have any entries, while the barcode scanner in MFP did really well.6 -
Yes x35
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A lot of my friends have moved to lose it but altho it has a similar thing to newsfeed you can only post links. I tried the tracking there and I guess I was just used to MFP and being able to see balances etc. I suppose if MFP completely crashes I will go back there but for now having a few groups like the running and the UAC (and I would join the habits group but they kicked me out... LOL) keeps me here and I can keep up with a few of my friends. I do miss the incentive of the newsfeed. Tracking is my one key to keeping myself in maintenance. I don't always use it the SAME way - sometimes I track to a set cal amount. Other times + exercise. etc but the fitbit and mfp integration seems better here than Loseit.6
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July 4
Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes 👍
Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day 👍
Did I keep track of everything I ate and drank 👍
Pass days: 0
(Documenting consistency (if there is a P=instead of number its a Pass Day)
UAC: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18- 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 314 -
Thursday 4th July
Exercice: Yes, walked for almost an hour
Calories: Yes, stayed under budget
Tracking: Yes, logged everything
Pass Days: 05 -
04/07/2024
Exercise – yes.
Tracking – yes
Calories -yes
Pass days – 0
I took my watch/fitness device off to have a shower this morning and forgot to put in back on. I spotted it while having coffee with friends. During the 4 hours I wasn’t wearing it I went out on my bike for a beautiful ride in the early morning over the hills behind my house (40 minutes, no steps obviously), popped in to see mum, came home and got in the car to drive to meet my friends (25 minutes each way without any steps), sat in the café for 45 minutes and walked around the garden centre for say, 20 minutes. So probably missed about 1,500 steps off the total for the day. I’m nearly up to 9,500 steps now – 30 minutes cardio workout this afternoon – so the day is ending with probably close to my goal of 12,000 steps.
I have been using MFP since mid-2018, tracking helped me to lose 22.5 kg (about 50 lb) in 9 months and I have continued to log since reaching goal in spring of 2019. I have been with the UAC group since January 2021 and, as @henridw2095 and @Lynne10010 have mentioned I find it quite easy to use now. (Here in the UK we can still use the barcode scanner for free).
I have seen an ad for a calorie tracker that is aimed at the UK foods which might be useful (at least I wouldn’t have the annoyance of finding database entries in “cups” – my pet grouse.) but I have so many foods saved in my personal list and so many recipes saved that it would be tedious to start over with a different tracker.
I find it very useful to track protein, fibre and calcium, I’m not worried about carbs and fat so long as my calories are OK. I’m a little old lady and my maintenance calories are 1,700 providing I keep up my activity levels so little room for treats.
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I was on MFP for a while way back when and I *really* liked the newsfeed. Frankly, I think it's bollocks (to steal a friend's word) for them to say that "no one" used the thing. Anyway, I'm back and I feel like I'm in the center of a void most days, until I get here. Erm, what was the question?
Yes, I track on MFP. I used to track on Chronometer, and while I found that site was really up to date on all the nutrition stats and exercise stuff, the sheer numbers wore me down. I did go to LoseIt when I learned of the change, but I find tracking very hard to do there, or maybe I'm not seeing all it can offer because the site doesn't break down the food day into carbs/protein/fat/etc. like MPF. That's the main benefit for me on MPF.
Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes? Dog walk x 3
Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day? No (an unplanned frozen custard)
Did I keep track of all the calories I ate or drank? Yes
Pass days (3+ is fine if you reach the max)? 16 -
Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes? yes, i walked for 60 min at the gym this morning
Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day? yes
Did I keep track of all the calories I ate or drank? yes
Pass days (3+ is fine if you reach the max)? 04 -
I to have had trouble staying connected with lose it I really wish the newsfeed would come back it was such a positive and easy way to stay connected guess all good things come to an end but…. I haven’t seen any new tools to use to stay connected oops should I bring that up??
Tracked and logged got my exercise in Happy 4th8 -
✅✅✅ 3️⃣ pass days left
I track on MFP because it is so easy. After being on here for over 9 years, I have no intention of leaving. Many of my friends are in Community groups, and although some of my friends who only used the newsfeed have left, I’m already in touch with those ones who started on MFP at the same time that I did. I have to say I haven’t missed the newsfeed as much as I thought I would, although I can see how the loss of all the landmark posts on streaks, weight loss, and diary closures etc might upset a lot of people. The replacement Activity Feed is a farce, as it is such a faff to access everyone’s feed individually.
As @snowshoe072 said, the newsfeed was a very positive and convenient way of reaching all one’s friends from various groups with one post. I wonder how many people just stopped logging on.9 -
Yes X 3
I track my food on another app but use MFP for challenges.5 -
Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes? Yes
Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day? Yes
Did I keep track of all the calories I ate or drank? Yes
Pass days (3+ is fine if you reach the max)? 1 Pass Day
I have been on MFP for a while, but didn't use it regularly until I started this weigh loss journey in January 2023. I can understand people's dissapointment in losing the newsfeed; I liked following some of my friends, but the the logging and challenges are what brings me here. They have been the key to my success - I haven't missed a day of logging in 2024 - and the challenges are what keep me motivated.
I wouldn't be where I am today without them - down 83.5 pounds. I have no intention of leaving unless they do away with the challenges.6 -
7/4
Happy 4th to my American friend.
Exersized-yes
Caleries-yes
Logged-yes4 -
Yes x3.
I have moved onto loseit for logging. It has comparable logging with the social aspect intact. I'm still getting used to all of the small differences, but it seems to be close to how MFP was.4 -
20 minutes of exercise Yes, walked planted a new hibiscus, and cleaned some
Stay within my calorie alotment Yes
Record all food and drink Yes
I"m sataying with MFP after trying Lose it a My Fat Secret
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Thursday
- Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes? yes, walking
- Did I stay within my calorie budget for the day? yes
- Did I keep track of all the calories I ate or drank? yes
- Pass days (3+ is fine if you reach the max)? 1 pass day
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7/4
✅❌✅
🅿️=3️⃣
Happy 4th🎆
Still finding my way after the loss of the newsfeed. Stopped tracking here and tried a few other apps- chronometer - love the details available; lose it - too limited in the free version and mynetdiary - really like the daily food scorecard - I know we shouldn’t label foods good or bad but this app gives every food a grade and then an overall grade for the day - may seem silly but it’s motivating to strive for an A4 -
Did I exercise for at least 20 minutes? Yes
Did I stay within my calorie budget for this day? No
Did I keep track of all the calories I ate or drank? Yes
Pass days (3+ is fine if you reach the max)? 21
