#'s driving me crazy!

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cymills
cymills Posts: 133 Member
in Introduce Yourself
Ok - I have barelyy been at this 24 hours and I already feel completely overwhelmed by the breakdown in numbers. I have eaten a banana, a FF yougurt , will eat tuna and two Wasa flatbreads today - that's it!. I was attempting to enter in a 4oz chicken breast for dinner. A skinless, boneless , grilled chicken breast! Once entered it stated i would be 19 points OVER for protein consumption!!!!! How do plan and/or eat with this system?. I never know what I will eat nor when!
Is there a list that can help you chose foods BEFORE you eat or plan to eat???!!!!

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  • PaleoIsPossible
    PaleoIsPossible Posts: 65
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    You're never going to hit every number every day - Don't worry about it! Protein won't hurt you unless you eat WAY too much of it.
  • carrieliz81
    carrieliz81 Posts: 489 Member
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    I agree, I think you're better off going over your protein numbers than your calories or carbs. I'm always WAY over on sugar because I eat a lot of fruit..... and I figure, at least I'm under on the calories!! There's no way to be perfect.
  • rschwa
    rschwa Posts: 27
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    Is there a list that can help you chose foods BEFORE you eat or plan to eat???!!!!
    I've often thought that a feature that shows you some suggestions of what to eat would be good, but programming it would be a bear, I think.

    Really, though - part of what you can achieve here is to become more aware of what you eat over the course of a day and see how it all adds up. Don't fret if you go over for a day, look at your food list and think about what you can do differently tomorrow.

    That said, are you sure you've entered everything right? Because with that food list, I don't think you could even stay breathing, unless you already only weigh about 43 lbs.
  • lt_mrcook
    lt_mrcook Posts: 389 Member
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    There is a way to show what you eat before you eat it...just plug it in. Planning ahead will help you just as much and maybe even more than just logging your food. That way there will be few surprises at the end of the day.
    Worry more about meeting your calorie total than any of the other numbers. That's what really determines if you lose or not. Just try to avoid processed foods, flours, and sugars as often as you can and things will work out for you.
  • aippolito1
    aippolito1 Posts: 4,894 Member
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    Protein is definitely a good thing to go over on - just don't go OVERboard. :) I'm usually over on carbs and sugar because I usually eat fruit with breakfast, lunch and snacks and am also usually within my calories. When I first started, I made a list of everything I'd bought and planned on eating...mapped out calories and everything and would glance at this list right before I'd go to eat so I had an idea where I'd be calories, fat, protein, fiber, etc.-wise. I keep a list of MFP's recommendations at my desk so I see it everyday and have it in my mindset all day. Don't worry, it's all trial and error! My first week, I was over almost everyday just because I didn't know how to plan. Now I have a better idea. You'll find your groove. :)
  • lucanaut
    lucanaut Posts: 2 Member
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    cymills, you can totally do this!

    Also, for recipes I've made, I've used www.sparkrecipes.com to calculate the nutritional value. You enter the ingredients, and how many servings it yields and it spits out all the values. If you create a free account, you can save them and tweak/reuse. Then just come back here and enter it in the "my foods" section. For things that are a little more elaborate, it saves you having to re-enter all the components of it every single time. Plus it's nice to know you can eat recipes with multiple ingredients knowing beforehand how much it's going to "cost you" calorie-wise...

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