Calorie Counter...SAY WHUUUT?

princelukas777
princelukas777 Posts: 36
in Food and Nutrition
So, would you guys say that the myfitnesspal calorie counter and food diary in general is pretty accurate? What have your guys' experience with it been so far?

Thanks for any input/advice!

Replies

  • canadianvampyregurl
    canadianvampyregurl Posts: 231 Member
    I think the workout calorie counter can be WAY off.....for the food, ive found the counts are generally pretty accurate...
  • tripledipped13
    tripledipped13 Posts: 78 Member
    I have done a little research today (was trying to figure out the calories in my salad for lunch) and found that the calorie counter on here is quite accurate. :happy:
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    I getcha there! I didn't plan on using it anyway....hahahahah.
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    Oh yeah? Cool, thanks for the input, dwiggins!!! =)
  • Pearsquared
    Pearsquared Posts: 1,656 Member
    Yeah, the exercise counter tends to overestimate the amount of calories burned. x3 At least you can customize it if you have a heart rate monitor.
  • acidosaur
    acidosaur Posts: 295 Member
    I think the workout calorie counter can be WAY off.....for the food, ive found the counts are generally pretty accurate...

    likewise.
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    Alrighty, I'll keep that in mind! Congrats on the weight loss so far, you guys!!!
  • Bekahmardis
    Bekahmardis Posts: 602 Member
    The food counter is great. I use my FitBit Flex for the calorie counting.
  • Kpablo
    Kpablo Posts: 355 Member
    Burned Exercise Calories tend to be off because their are too many factors that can cause a difference. Weight, sex, age etc. Get a heart rate monitor and log it that way.

    Food Calorie Counter is I would 98% accurate, if you cook your own foods. Restaurants you have to be a little more careful. The app for the phone is awesome, you can just take a picture of the bar code of the food and BAM all your nutritional facts are right there.

    I've used MyFitnessPal since 2009, through my pregnancy, through breastfeeding my daughter and now through losing weight.

    Good Luck!
  • mcibty
    mcibty Posts: 1,252 Member
    I think the workout calorie counter can be WAY off.....for the food, ive found the counts are generally pretty accurate...

    This.
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    Thanks for the lovely advice! For those of you who haven't added me yet...please do so by all means!!! =D
  • stumblinthrulife
    stumblinthrulife Posts: 2,558 Member
    Hard to judge 'accurate' unless you have something that you know is accurate to benchmark against. So I kind of laugh when people say it's off.

    I have found that 90% of the time I lose weight exactly as predicted by the MFP calorie counts. So by that token, yes, I find it accurate.
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    LOL, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense when you put it that way! HAHAHAHA. Sounds good, mate! Seems like it's been working for me, but I'll have to see since it's only day two. LOL.
  • EpicPickle
    EpicPickle Posts: 35
    MFP has been the only tool that ever worked for me, however, it is a tool, and you have to learn to use it to suit your goals and needs.

    I would agree that the estimated calorie burns from certain activities are off, sometimes by quite a bit. However, I still log it, and I make sure my daily intake is sufficiently high that I'm not at any risk of undereating but not so high that I'm not losing weight either. It took me a while to figure out where that magic area is for me, but I have to say that the method does work IF you learn to use it correctly. MFP recommendations are not always ideal depending on your fitness objectives either, so it pays to do your own homework and just use the tracking tools accordingly. The food tracking is outstanding, but you should always double check the label of your food item before entering it as some user-entered data for some foods can be off.
  • lobo_a_gogo
    lobo_a_gogo Posts: 265 Member
    I think the workout calorie counter can be WAY off.....for the food, ive found the counts are generally pretty accurate...

    This,


    Food is usually accurate, but you mean to tell me you burned 1000 calories speed walking for an hour? yeah right.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    Hahahahaha

    You gotta watch these .....

    I pulled in Planter Cocktail Peanuts ...... you know those suckers have more carbs than calories? ..... I didn't know that was possible :laugh: Also ..... they had very little fat!! :laugh:

    Get an idea of the food before you enter it .... just in case. Most of the time it's good.
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    [/quote]
    Food is usually accurate, but you mean to tell me you burned 1000 calories speed walking for an hour? yeah right.
    [/quote]

    LOL!
  • princelukas777
    princelukas777 Posts: 36
    Tru dat...I've looked up a lot of Asian foods and got some pretty funky results. LOL
  • affacat
    affacat Posts: 216 Member
    pre-packaged foods are almost always right, because someone else typed it in. BUT... sometimes someone gets something wrong, so you should check everything the first time you add it. then you know it's ok... edit it if it's not. (for example, i found one item entered with a serving size of 17g for the correct number of cals, but the actual serving size is 7g, so anyone using that food was undercounting).

    for 'random' food (like, say, 'raw blueberries', i double check on another site, usually it's okay here.

    for all cardio, i double check on another site. for example, running i use the runnersworld calculator. height and weight play a factor so the numbers it defaults to might not be for you. but just change them, and then it remembers your workout (copy from monday function, for example).

    the absolute most important factor is you: weight your food. everything. don't guess. i've seen some weird things, like a can of beans that said it had x servings at x grams per serving, but if you did the math, there was more food in the can than that. not much can be done about that. or, sometimes, they count the water weight that you're never going to eat, that sort of stuff.

    it doesn't track strength training cals, so you're on your own for that. but you can add some cal burn in there to make up for it if you'd like. and from what i can tell, it's pretty much impossible to get a solid cal burn estimate for hiit training even if you're wearing a hrm, but i've read conflicting reports on that.

    the estimated cals per day with exercise added in seem 'about' right... about as right as all the various tdee equations that give differing results. i've done my tdee calcs on practically every calc online and have gotten widely varying results (over 400 cals a day) but mfp seems to end up in that variance, so it's 'good enough' if you keep an eye on it and eat your exercise. though i do recommend calculating your tdee / goal cal and just using that.
    i like:
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    if you want, you can then override your cals per day with that result, and set all your exercise here to 1 cal, and just use the food side of this site.
    So yes, it's generally a reliable calorie counter for both exercise and food, and very reliable if you double check everything once.
  • PGG19
    PGG19 Posts: 63 Member
    the food counter seems pretty good, for the walking/jogging/running I use nike+ on my iPod, and made a new exercise with my correct amount of calories burned.

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