Something that made me go, "Hmm..."

cmcollins001
cmcollins001 Posts: 3,472 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I went to Genghis Grill today for lunch. Before going, I wanted to get an idea of the kind of bowl I was going to build and at least a ballpark of the calorie count, so I used the restaurant's online guide to build my bowl and it gave me the nutritional breakdown.

Here's the part that make me go, "Hmmm..." When I went to enter the same info into MFP, I noticed on a lot of things the calorie counts were higher compared to what the website said. Now I know that MFP's database is primarily customer driven and kept up, so it got me to wondering if some people are assigning a higher calorie counts to food in the database when entering it, so it will show up on their diaries as meeting their calorie goals when they are in fact eating much less, and they don't want anyone on their friends list to know they are eating at a lower calorie deficit than they should.

Replies

  • Trilby16
    Trilby16 Posts: 707 Member
    Those would be some sneaky people!
  • Jessi_Brooks
    Jessi_Brooks Posts: 759 Member
    Sometimes I see foods listed and it has all the correct info, but the carbs arent filled in. I sometimes wondered if people left out the carbs on purpose so their diary wouldnt show way over on carbs
  • Jackson4590
    Jackson4590 Posts: 145 Member
    I always put in exercise calories lower than what my HRM says I burned and I always put in higher food calories if it's not scannable by my phone.
  • chatogal
    chatogal Posts: 436 Member
    not just sneaky, but I am thinking of the deviousness and sheer hard work involved in this kind of deception!! Wouldnt it be easier to just close your diary??
  • Pearsquared
    Pearsquared Posts: 1,656 Member
    I'm thinking they do it just to be "on the safe side", like, if they asked for extra sauce or something.
  • cmcollins001
    cmcollins001 Posts: 3,472 Member
    It makes more sense to log accurately, whether you be under, over, or on target, because regardless of what you tell yourself, your friends, or your family....your body is going to process the truth.

    Eating too many calories can cause issues for weight loss goals...but on the same note, so can eating too few calories.
  • marm1962
    marm1962 Posts: 950 Member
    Some people only put in what they are counting.....if they are not counting carbs but are counting fat then they leave out the carb count.....some people only worry about the calories and don't put in the other info at all. I personally think all the info should be put in if it's going to added to the site at all. The other thing is it might not be an FP site problem, but a restaurant problem...maybe the place is showing fewer calories than it's supposed to ......hmmmm? Would not be the first time that's happened.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
    Things put in my users are very very iffy. For example there's an entry for French Dressing that has 2 TB at 90 calories (correct) and the fat at 21g (Incorrect.) I was on my phone trying to figure out how my fat was so crazy high when I finally picked up on it.

    Consider that a gram of fat is 9 calories. 9*21=....90?
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    I find lots of entries that don't have certain macros entered. I thought I was ridiculously below the protein I ought to be eating until I checked some of my most commonly eaten foods and noticed there's nothing added in for protein. I'm still low, but not to the degree I originally thought.
  • BernardPumpkin
    BernardPumpkin Posts: 86
    yeah this iz messin me up, cuz im tryna cut my sodium intake, and some of these foodz are sayin lower sodium then what it saids on tha product box im eating from. i ate ice cream the other day and on the box it said 200 caloriez, and on this site its sayin 220. wtf :grumble:
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    It makes more sense to log accurately, whether you be under, over, or on target, because regardless of what you tell yourself, your friends, or your family....your body is going to process the truth.

    Eating too many calories can cause issues for weight loss goals...but on the same note, so can eating too few calories.

    I agree. I didn't realize the errors at first, but now I'm double checking everything. Even items scanned with my phone can sometimes come up with incorrect information. I've seen both added calories, subtracted calories, and other places being incorrect or missing altogether. I really don't get the point of deducting calories, other than to make yourself feel like you're eating less. *shrug*

    I guess there could be differences based on what country the person lives in and what is on the label in one country might not be the same for another. That's the only reason I can think of that would make any sense to me.
  • yaseyuku
    yaseyuku Posts: 871 Member

    I agree. I didn't realize the errors at first, but now I'm double checking everything. Even items scanned with my phone can sometimes come up with incorrect information. I've seen both added calories, subtracted calories, and other places being incorrect or missing altogether. I really don't get the point of deducting calories, other than to make yourself feel like you're eating less. *shrug*

    I guess there could be differences based on what country the person lives in and what is on the label in one country might not be the same for another. That's the only reason I can think of that would make any sense to me.

    This. The labels are sometimes different in different countries. I live in Japan, and sometimes the same products I used to have in the US have different nutritional information here, despite being exactly the same.
  • rkramer924
    rkramer924 Posts: 3
    Point taken - couldn't agree more!
  • crazy4fids
    crazy4fids Posts: 173
    Maybe it is because they didn't eat all of it?
  • honeysprinkles
    honeysprinkles Posts: 1,757 Member
    I wouldn't assume that, I think that's too far of a jump. Sometimes, restaurants change their nutrition info. and sometimes people just completely guess (and overestimate) or get the information from a different (and incorrect) source. Depending on the restaurant, the location might matter make a difference too (especially on a country to country basis, but even different states can vary).
  • BDEGAND
    BDEGAND Posts: 53
    I suck! I barely ever log my foods :(
  • mjl54
    mjl54 Posts: 127 Member
    I thought only information goes in the public database if you click on the part to publish. why would people publish information if they know its incorrect. very PIA.

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