How to populate "RECENT" and/or "FREQUENT" lists in Food Diary

imdjl
imdjl Posts: 4 Member
in MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions

Hi. I posted this in another forum and someone there suggested I post it here instead. Hoping to get a resolution!

I recently cleared out all the entries in the "Recent" and "Frequent" tabs (see attached image) for adding foods to my diary (because there were too many and superfluous ones). I have been adding foods from the "My Foods" tab ... but these entries aren't then added to the "Recent" and "Frequent" tabs (as had been the case in the past).

2k0h0wnpdr88.png

As you can see, only "blueberries" have made it to the "Recent" list ... even though I have recently added several other foods to the diary. So question is: why is "blueberries" remembered? And why is nothing else remembered?

I know there are other options for regularly diarized foods, such as creating "Meals" ... but I found the "Recent" and "Frequent" very useful.

Can anyone help / shed light on this??

Thanks (and fingers crossed!)

Answers

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,849 Member

    "Recent" and "Frequent" get populated when you log a food in your diary, and don't afterward delete the food from all the days it appears in your diary. As you learned, you can delete items from both lists manually, too.

    As I understand it, both lists are of limited size, so the oldest-used entries will drop off the "Recent" list to make room for newly-logged foods, and the least-frequently-used ones will drop off the "Frequent" list to make room for new frequent ones.

    If you want to pre-populate those lists, rather than just letting them grow as you naturally log foods in your diary, one method would be to go back to a past diary day before you started logging, and log the foods there. Yes, that may distort some reports for that time period, but if you go back more than the normal reports you use would go, it's maybe not a big deal.

    Personally, I just use the app in the way its design seems to assume, i.e., I just log foods in my diary when I eat them, and let the Recent/Frequent lists grow over time, then be pruned to accommodate new entries by MFP removing less used ones. IME, which is IT-heavy, trying to make software do something in a way it wasn't designed to work will often cause more bumps in the road than it solves.

  • imdjl
    imdjl Posts: 4 Member

    Thanks for your response.

    The issue is that the "Recent" and "Frequent" lists are not growing. It did, in the past, and it was working exactly as I expected. But after pruning these lists, they simply aren't "learning" or growing anymore. I found the lists to be very useful, so I am frustrated that it's not working anymore.

    I've logged out and back in, I've tried different browsers, I've cleared cookies and history … all to no avail.

    Any other thoughts / suggestions? Anyone from Teck Support on here by any chance?

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