Tips for success?

gek1212

hi everyone! I haven’t used this app in over 10 years and wondering how you guys use it now to best achieve your goals? What aspects do you find most motivating and helpful on a daily and weekly basis?

totameafox

I use it to track my food and socialize with the community. The people are what motivate me the most.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/147555-speak-friend-and-enter

macca1611

I have used this app for I think nine years now. On and off that is. Currently on a weigh loss and fitness personal mission.

I use the app for accountability. I set a calorie deficit and goal. But specific macros too. So log food daily. Then I log my activity for steps and exercise. It keeps me on track. It lets me know I've done well. I don't feel as bad when having treats as long as I stay under calorie goals etc.

AnnPT77

I've been here for nearly 10 years, just under a year of weight loss, and maintenance since. I've been athletically active for longer, over 20 years, starting when I was still obese.

Logging my food is important for me, but also psychologically and logistically easy. The calorie side is part of that, but I'm also motivated to keep my overall average nutrition good. I participate in the Community here a lot, both to keep my head in the game, and to try as best I can to help others succeed, because being active and at a healthy weight have been such a powerful quality of life improvement for me. I want that outcome for everyone, including strangers.

For myself - i.e., selfish reasons - I participate in one of the regular "report your exercise" threads, and some specialized food threads.

The exercise thread is especially helpful to me in Winter, to keep me accountable to myself, because my Summer activities are really fun, self-motivating; but Winter is more about staying in shape for Summer so takes a little more conscientious attention.

The food threads I follow for myself, at this point, are more about enjoyment and variety, not "cut cut cut" or the threads where people mourn the things they no longer eat. The undercurrent of sadness in those doesn't help me personally, as it seems to help some others - maybe to them it isn't even sadness. Also, personally I still eat the same range of foods I always ate, just different portions and frequencies of the calorie dense foods. Even when I was obese, my nutrition and food choices weren't terrible: I just ate too much calorie-wise. I understand that that's not true for everyone, either.

My main starting tip is pretty much always to pick the easiest plan that leads gradually toward weight and health goals, forming habits that make staying at goal weight and good health easy, able to happen almost on autopilot when other parts of life get demanding, because sooner or later they will. What that plan should be will differ from one person to the next.

Many people seem to arrive here with a radical plan for changing everything all at once, aggressively: Aggressively low calories for fast loss, restrictive eating rules (maybe one of the trending named diets), possibly an intense, punitive daily exercise plan stacked on top of that. That may suit some people, but often it seems not to end well, though it does end quickly - unrealistically hard, not a path to thriving, for many. That radicalism isn't essential to success, IMO, and can be counter-productive.

Best wishes for success!