Are the numbers in the food tab goals or limits.

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arcticlynx1
arcticlynx1 Posts: 31 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I went to the foods tab, then the settings tab, and I have it now set to track calories, carbs, fat, protein, fiber, sodium (I wish they would add another slot so i could track sugar).

Now I know you want to keep sodium and fat low (so that is a suggested limit), and you supposedly want to eat up to your calorie limit (but not much more, so a limit as well), but are the other entries supposed to be limits or goals? I have always heard it was good to eat higher levels of protein and fiber. So should try to eat more protein and fiber than the bar MFP shows, or less??? Those entries go red if you eat more than the bar set on those metrics.

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  • glendeb
    glendeb Posts: 129 Member
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    I personally track calcium, and I always try to go over with that. I think as long as you as sensible with what you want to go over with (eg your goals of protein and fibre) then I think you are making the right choice. :happy:
  • xoxojaymerz
    xoxojaymerz Posts: 2
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    They are a goal to limit the intake to that much in order to lose the weight you indicated in your profile. The idea is to eat at a higher ratio, not necessarily more. There are many food high in fiber and protein but also high in carbs, so the best thing to do is find foods with a higher ratio of protein in them.

    Good Luck!
  • crasula
    crasula Posts: 53 Member
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    I've been working on the basis that they are suggested limits calculated around the weight loss targets the MFP suggests based on your inputs.
    If you think about it logically, the 1400 or 1250 calories it's suggested you need to consume to meet your weight loss targets have to be comprised of carbs, protein, fat. etc. It's effectively breaking down the recommended amounts of each type you need based as a percentage of your calorie target. That probably confused you even more but i wouldn't worry about the results of exceeding those limits unless you constantly heavily exceed one to the detriment of the other. For example if you eat 1400 calories of just fat with no protein or carbs then that would be bad but just take those limits as guides rather than gospel.

    Realistically if you've got a good rounded diet you should just be ticking along consistently across all the main groups. If you see big deficits consistently then you should try to counter it. I run a lot so i find i need more carbs than are recommended, similarly a weight trainer may require more protein. I only track fat, protein and carbs as i feel they are the most important to monitor.

    BEWARE THAT THE NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION IS NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE IN THE FOOD DATABASE.

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