MFP doesn't work.
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FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
I've lost weight on MFP and am currently maintaining that loss for 2 years. Is that good enough?
You are right that many people gain the weight back that they've lost. That's not exclusive to MFP or calorie counting. If anything, I think the people who use MFP for weight loss do have the tools they need to ensure lasting success, if they approach it the right way. If they take the time to learn about energy balance and CICO, and they take the time to figure out what their TDEE is and a reasonable deficit for weight loss. If they choose a way of eating in that deficit that they can adhere to for the long term, rather than making drastic changes and cutting out foods to lose weight that they want to eat again after they've reached their goal. If they focus on choosing foods that provide nutrition, satiety, and enjoyment - then yes I think they can be successful in keeping the weight off long term. Calorie counting is a tool. As one becomes skilled with it, they may not need to log forever, but the principles and the concepts they learn during the process of using MFP are valuable.
When you said MFP doesn't work because you didn't keep the weight off... did you stop logging? Did you change the way you were eating? Did you exercise less? If so, that's not a failing of MFP.... as people were saying to the OP... maybe look at the user of the tool not the tool itself.15 -
This might sound really dumb but oh well...
My friend is having a hard time deciding between MFP and WW. I showed her both apps, told her the cost (we both get discounts on WW membership), the pros and cons, what to expect in terms of realistic wt loss, good, bad, and ugly, everything. So she said "Why can't I just do something that doesn't rely on an app or number to tell me what's good or bad for me or when I've had enough?" And I get it. Some people end up relying on the tools because they never built up the new behaviors or psychology required to lose or maintain a weight loss. And when they fail, its the tool's fault. Maybe that's what OP's issue is. Maybe she (?) couldn't adapt to a new set of behaviors (maybe weighing and measuring everything) required to make the tool work, and so blamed the tool.5 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
So you are saying no one can maintain weight loss long term so you should not even try to lose weight?
Curious why you here and what "success" is for you?
Weight management is not magic. Have a surplus of calories and gain weight. Have the amount you need to maintain your weight and stay the way you are. Create a calorie deficit and lose weight. You may get the numbers wrong when you log food or exercise and have problems but if you are reasonably accurate and consistent with your intake/burns then you will be able to manage your weight.
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I constantly get confused at this perception that MFP is a "method" or "diet". There's a fundamental fact about all involving calories, weight and energy. It's a tool, not a method. Calories are energy. If you consume more than you burn you gain weight. If you burn more than you consume you lose weight. It's as simple as that.
All MFP and other trackers do is provide you a path of least resistance in order to track and maintain the discipline to change your diet. WW Is another path for doing this. But ultimately it boils down to a really simple principle. If you claim this tool doesn't work for some reason then you're fundamentally misunderstanding the point.16 -
I've never done WW but I could see in one aspect how it would be easy to tally up points in your head since it's only 30 points or so. Counting calories while a better choice to me, it seems a bit tough to tally it in your head. Cuz you know big numbers:).
Some people and I'll include myself would just like to eat and go about their day not having to weigh food or log food.
Reality is though if I have to I will log!2 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
I joined MFP in 2007. I lost 70 pounds in about nine months. Yes, I gained five to ten pounds in those first few winters after losing it, but then I would lose it again every summer. It was/is a cyclical thing that is related to my living in a cold climate and not being as active in the winter. I always dropped that weight again every summer.
I have maintained my total weight loss for almost ten years. I'm an older woman, past menopause and with hypothyroidism. Is it a piece of cake? No. I have to watch what I eat, I still use my food scale, I log my food here, and I eat 13 out of my 14 meals a week at home so I completely control what I eat. There is a lot of discipline involved.
It is doable and it is worth it.23 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
@FitGirl_Running
I agree diets don't work, they are temporary. It's only when we quit dieting that the weight comes off and stays off.
There are many many ppl on MFP that have lost the weight using MFP tools, continued into maintenance and having kept the weight off.
Even if some members do gain some weight back, it doesn't mean anyone is failure! MFP has taught us well.. if necessary we put ourselves back in a deficit and go from there.
MFP is simply a tool (a very helpful tool!), a food scale is also a tool, there are many tools one can use to reach a goal in life. It's up to us to make it a lifestyle change through out the entire process, not simply when we've lost the weight. One needs to make a mind change from the very beginning so it doesn't start out as just another 'diet'. Diets don't work because they are done as a temporary means to a goal # or date etc.
Some join use MFP as a diet and find out quickly it won't work long term. Those that use it as a helping tool for a lifestyle change can be very successful in keeping the weight off and do keep it off! As long as we continue to make choices we've learned here that will continue.
Off to swim!
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Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »FreyasRebirth wrote: »Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »Also...be careful on ONLY counting Calories! Good weight loss, you need to increase the amount of Protein that they say. I try to get 1 g of protein for EVERY pound of body weight.
i could be wrong on the numbers slightly.. but isnt it .85g to 1g of protein for every pound of LEAN muscle mass you have? not weight in total
Human Nutrition course book, current edition (as I'm enrolled in the class right now), gives 1.7 grams per kg as the absolute maximum "recommended" for athletes in the building muscle phase. Non-athletes have an RDA of 0.8 grams per kilo. 136 lb non-athlete me would get 49.5 grams, nowhere near 1 gram per pound. (Higher amounts "do not appear to be harmful" but not actually necessary, according to the textbook on the subject.)
but is that lean muscle or total body weight because i have always thought it was lean muscle
every site will give you something different. some will say lean body weight, some will say per body weight,another one said when you are losing weight 1g per lb of body weight and 1.7 or 1.8 when trying to build muscle.so I guess it varies. I did a macro calculator and to maintain muscle and lose fat it gives me 1g per lb of weight.0 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
Out of curiosity what are you doing? What's your plan?
For myself I've lost on WW and MFP. I've been on WW the longest so most of my loss was from there, not because it was a better plan, simply because of time. And I've regained small amounts on both because I wasn't 100% on plan. Was it the plan's fault? No it was mine for goofing around. Regain happens to anyone regardless of plan. And there are plenty of people on WW telling their stories of how they lost big and regained big, so now they're back.
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FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
Ive been on MFP almost 3 years and have not gained any of the weight I lost back(except for water weight),not even what I lost the 2 years before I joined MFP. when you get to goal weight you then have to find the right way to maintain your weight, if you go back to eating the way you did before you lost then yes you will gain weight back. if you eat more than you burn you gain, if you eat less you lose,if you eat the same you maintain. its that easy. I also know that if I have to weigh everything for the rest of my life I will do that if it prevents me from gaining weight back.losing weight and keeping it off is a lifestyle. you have to adapt to your lifestyle.4 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
Thinking that you can do something to lose weight without accepting that weight loss is not something you can just do and be done with without a plan for maintenance, as you and your friends seem to have done, is the recipe for disaster11 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
Chances are slim of keeping it off if your intention is to use it as intended until reaching goal and then reverting back to old behavior. MFP can very easily be set to help one maintain their new weight. If you use it correctly...it works. If not...that's on you.
I've been maintaining my 45lb loss here for over a year now.
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FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
MFP is a calorie counting tool. Go to the maintenance forum and you'll find hundreds, probably thousands of people who've been successfully maintaining for years. The fact that you gained all your weight back means you failed to educate yourself on how maintenance works, you failed to design a proper maintenance plan for yourself, and you didn't adapt your use of this calorie counting tool to serve your maintenance goals. In short: User error.15 -
VintageFeline wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »jpommerening wrote: »1200 calories is not much food... what kinds of food are you eating? If you are seriously limiting yourself to only 1200 a day and not eating back some of your exercise calories, your body may be storing what it is offered because the body needs certain amounts of food to turn into ATP (energy) to keep the body functioning and to have energy to burn fat. it is is not getting protein rich foods with good fats and good carbs, it is going to hold on to what ever you have to offer it to use for energy to function.
my advise.... INCREASE your calories to 1600, and eat good proteins and good fats and then see what happens. feed your body energy rich food so it can work with you not against you.
ALSO... allow your self one day a week to splurge and boil over your calories. It gives you the change to not suppress your cravings, but it also gives your metabolism a boost and tricks your body. Holding at only 1200 calories your body starts to think it is starving itself and by splurging once a week I realizes it is not. And the good thing is, after you eat the craving foods and junk the first couple cheat days... you will see that you don't crave it near as much and it kinda makes you feel bogged down and you don't want it.
I have a medical background, a fitness and nutrition instructor... so I am not just talking out of my *kitten*...
Most of this is incorrect so I am very surprised that you are a nutrition instructor.
I'm not, I have a "nutrition coach" on my FB. She sells Arbonne. 'Nuff said.
Me too.0 -
Myfitnesspal can't "work" or "not work" - it's just a calorie counting tool. Even calorie counting is so basic it can't really "work" or "not work".
What works or doesn't is your weight loss and maintenance strategy. There seems to be very little research on this which focuses in on strategies which increase or decrease the likelihood of long term success, and it's desperately needed. We have heaps of anecdotal stuff suggesting things like small deficits, flexibility, taking breaks, focusing on maintenance etc are helpful but there's just such a need for solid research.7 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
All weight loss programs--MFP, Weight Watchers, Adkins, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, even Slimfast--work while you're following them, and stop working when you stop following them.
People who lose weight on MFP or any other program and then gain it all back? I'll bet if they're really honest, they'll tell you that they stopped following the program diligently. And I include myself in that statement.
The "secret" to losing weight, is find a tool/program/system/whatever that you can stick to long term. For some people, that means counting calories. For some it's counting points. For some it's limiting (or eliminating) certain food groups.
The fact is, to lose weight, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn. How you get there is up to you.
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FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
Lol.
I've gained and loss significant amounts of weight before and have witnessed the same phenomenon in others. Do you know why people gain the weight back? It has nothing to do with MFP. It's because people go back to overeating.
Gaining the weight back isn't guaranteed to happen to anyone, but a lot of people make short term changes instead of long term ones they can commit to for the rest of their life and they look at all this as a "diet". They get to goal weight and stop watching what they eat and slowly over time they revert back to old habits.
Want to keep the weight off? Form habits you can commit to for the rest of your life.7 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
<<<Going on four years maintenance.
MFP is a great tool...I learned a lot from it. I haven't logged in ages but maintain my weight more or less (I always bump a little in the winter).
Gaining weight back has nothing to do with this tool or any other tool or diet model. People gain the weight back because they talk a good talk about "lifestyle change" but generally fail to implement any kind of long term change and usually go back to "normal" dietary habits, drop exercise, etc. But none of that has anything to do with MFP.14 -
FitGirl_Running wrote: »You are right. MFP doesn't work. Oh, you can lose weight using MFP, but your chances of keeping the weight off are slim. I've been on MFP for years. I've had significant weight loss but gained it all back. All my MFP friends have either gained their weight back or are still struggling along trying to lose. Until I realized that diets don't work, and that making weight loss a goal doesn't work, I didn't have any real success. Those of you who want to say that you lost weight on MFP so it does work---it doesn't work unless you keep the weight off, so show me someone who has. I'll bet they are few and far between. Focusing on weight loss, counting calories, and dieting is just a recipe for disaster.
According to this logic, math books don't work, practising an instrument doesn't work, barbells don't work, scientific methods don't work, building mastery of any high level skillset/subject doesn't work. After all, the chances of a given person doggedly pursuing proper use of these tools after starting off are slim. Most people quit, or stop and start intermittently without maintaining long term commitment to doing their work.
You may as well say "consistent commitment to really hard work" in any given activity doesn't work, because most people don't maintain consistent commitment to really hard work. It's insane troll logic.
Well this is not the most astonishing insight of my life, but every practise, habit, behaviour, tool "doesn't work" when you don't use it. Your bicycle won't ride itself today just because you got on it yesterday.
A tool won't be any doing work when it's not being employed. Why? Because it's not magic. You have to actually do it yourself.20 -
It works in general, if it's not specifically working for you make adjustments. You may need more or less calories to get off the plateau you're sitting on. I have to make adjustments on a regular basis to get results.2
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