Calorie Counting 101

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  • Tanie98
    Tanie98 Posts: 675 Member
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    OP, based on your display pic, I am assuming you reach your goal.My question is , do you still track your food in maintanance?
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
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    Tanie98 wrote: »
    OP, based on your display pic, I am assuming you reach your goal.My question is , do you still track your food in maintanance?
    I have not reached my goal. My long term goal is to be 210 lbs at 8% body fat. It will take me at least a decade to accomplish it (assuming it is within my genetic potential). I don't like thinking in terms of reaching a goal then converting to maintenance. I simply set goals, then when I reach them, I set bigger goals. If you do reach a goal you are comfortable with, and you stop tracking, and start over eating, you won't remain at your goal for long. It just depends what happens to your intake when you stop tracking. I'm certain plenty of people after tracking for long enough, can maintain weight without weighing and tracking, but because I will essentially never stop setting goals, I'll continue to track for the foreseeable future.
  • Tanie98
    Tanie98 Posts: 675 Member
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    ok .Same here.Whenever I am away from home and unable to log my food my portion sizes increases and I would go for that second cookie since I am not forced to fit it into a calorie goal.Logging keeps me accountable
  • debcarv
    debcarv Posts: 256 Member
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    gotta bump
  • NK1112
    NK1112 Posts: 781 Member
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    windyleighmm wrote: »
    This is a GREAT post/thread!
    ....
    Now, this is where I start to get sketchy on how to treat this program...
    "The program sets your calorie goal a little low expecting that you will eat the extra calories that you earn through exercise."
    Eating "earned" exercise calories? This seems counterproductive but should I be doing this to get enough calories? Or will this just be a bonus if I don't eat them back? Or am I misunderstanding? I started this to be healthy and don't want to just slash calories to lose weight...

    I set mine to sedentary because I haven't yet started an exercise regimen. When I do (soon) I want to understand how the program works and not deprive my body unknowingly.

    You may read a lot of differing responses to this question. As I understand it to be ...
    1. If you exercise - aerobic exercise - on a regular basis, then when you set your goals you answer with how active you are. You chose sedentary and how much weight you wanted to lose in a week ... MFP gave back a target for calories and macronutrients ... and you eat to that level.
    2. Should you now start exercising on a regular basis, you will be burning additional calories through that exercise, so your NET calories for those exercise days will actually be lower than what you ate. There is a chance you could fall under a 'healthy' low calorie limit ... many medical reports I've read say not to drop below 1200 for the average person ... and you should, therefore be eating a bit more to cover those exercise-used calories.
    3. You can change your goals to indicate that you do exercise and how frequently/how hard. Should you do that, then MFP will expect that you will input your exercise and it will give you an amount it has been set to assign for additional calories based on that exercise. These would be calories that are subtracted from your target calories and provide the number of NET calories you have consumed. You don't want those NET calories to drop under the healthy zone, so you can 'eat them back' ...

    That said ... I also set my profile as sedentary, because (1st) I am, and (2nd) the amount of exercise I do is not going to put me into a dangerously low calorie intake, and (3rd) I think the calories assigned to the exercises are on the high end and therefore I'm afraid my weight loss will stall because I'll be eating too much.

    So ... you have to go along with it and see how you do, and which method you want to use.

    Good luck. And by the way, MFP has wonderful articles that describe exactly how it works .. they are on the message boards. Plus there are other helpful articles as well, and they are written by MFP people and not us users. Search them out. I think you will like them.
  • marialy21
    marialy21 Posts: 60 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Drives me nuts when people say they have been eating 1200 calories for weeks and haven't lost a pound. Weighing food is so much more accurate and retrains your brain as to what food portions actually looks like.
    In a pinch where I can't weigh food I always over estimate how much I've eaten. And if I don't know how many calories I've burned exercising I UNDER estimate.
  • sodakat
    sodakat Posts: 1,126 Member
    edited November 2014
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    robbackatya wrote: »
    :) That is great you lost weight, I hope you are at your goal or at least happy in the progress. It doesn't change the fact that weighing and measuring is not necessary for an accurate weight loss number.

    Robbackatya, I'm guessing you own the website you are promoting in your profile. Just did a netsol whois search on the site and the owner has the same name as your user name here. So are you just advertising here, trying to take users to your website???

    55835802.png


  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
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    robbackatya wrote: »
    :) That is great you lost weight, I hope you are at your goal or at least happy in the progress. It doesn't change the fact that weighing and measuring is not necessary for an accurate weight loss number.
    Why are you posting this in a guide about how to count calories accurately? It's helping no one. People didn't come here to decided whether or not they should be counting calories. This guide is about how best to count calories for people who already decided to count calories. Myfitnesspal is completely based around counting calories. You have essentially walked into a church to pass out pamphlets on atheism. I agree that it is quite possible to lose weight without counting calories. Of course it is. I still maintain that for MANY people counting is the easiest and most efficient way to lose weight consistently. I ask again that you please keep the discussion based on how to best count calories. If you want to debate whether or not you should count calories, please start your own thread.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
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    robbackatya wrote: »
    I agree that you have to count. You can't manage what you can't measure. I just disagree with how to measure it.
    Old school mentality is trying to measure and weigh everything so that it fits in this static equation.
    New school mentality is to throw away the static equation and measure everything on how it is impacting your weight.


    It's not new school. It has been an excellent option probably before calorie counting. However, this here is a calorie counting website, and a topic called "Calorie Counting 101" to boot. What are you doing???
  • ChrisM8971
    ChrisM8971 Posts: 1,067 Member
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    Fantastic post and agree is should be a sticky. I have to keep reminding myself that I now have to bookmark rather than bump.

    My pet hate is inaccurate entries on the database, to me it is always worth double checking the entry vs what is on the packet etc and only takes a few seconds. Sodium seems to be a problem for some reason, entries in grams need to be multiplied by 1,000 for mg before entering and a lot of packages show salt rather than sodium.

    I find the following conversion site very useful when entering data onto MFP

    http://oxsalt.org.uk/db/?page_id=37
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
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    robbackatya wrote: »
    I agree that you have to count. You can't manage what you can't measure. I just disagree with how to measure it.
    Old school mentality is trying to measure and weigh everything so that it fits in this static equation.
    New school mentality is to throw away the static equation and measure everything on how it is impacting your weight.

    Again, not helpful here. You seem to want to implore a new method of tracking foods/nutrients. That's fine. Feel free to start a new thread and talk about it to your hearts content there.
  • Tanie98
    Tanie98 Posts: 675 Member
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    When I log in cooked meat like stake or ground beef, i always convert it to oz from grams since I only get enteries in oz. Is still as accurate to log in in ounces instead of grams?
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
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    Tanie98 wrote: »
    When I log in cooked meat like stake or ground beef, i always convert it to oz from grams since I only get enteries in oz. Is still as accurate to log in in ounces instead of grams?
    Conversion is fine. It shouldn't change anything providing your math is correct.

  • mattyc772014
    mattyc772014 Posts: 3,543 Member
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    Great Job Vismal! And thank you. I have a question for you. Not sure if you answer this. What do you recommend for weight loss per week once you need to lose the last 20-30lbs?
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
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    mattyc772014 wrote: »
    Great Job Vismal! And thank you. I have a question for you. Not sure if you answer this. What do you recommend for weight loss per week once you need to lose the last 20-30lbs?
    There are way way too many variables to answer this without more info. I would need to know how much you weigh, how tall you are, your general activity level, how much you exercise, etc. Feel free to PM me but try and keep this discussion based solely around calorie counting.

  • nick40vmi
    nick40vmi Posts: 70 Member
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    I'm loving this app! I have lost a bunch of weight for the past few months. My secret is I use the 'Pacer' app which is a pedometer that runs all day, and set my MyFitnessPal settings to a 'Sedentary' lifestyle. Even though I consider myself 'Lightly Active', I am losing the correct amount of weight (2 lb./week) and I am doing well. I also incorporate cardio and a bit of strength training into my day-to-day life. I have lost 15.5 lb. since September in which I weighed ~240-238 and feel I like I will be losing more.

    Just thought I would share my progress in case someone is at a road block or doesn't trust this awesome app. It really has improved my life and hope it will improve others as well.

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