Looking for success stories

Up front caveat; I've never been clinically overweight whilst using MFP, which invalidates my advice to some. I have used MFP since 2012 and have enjoyed success managing my weight and improving my body composition, strength, and health.

Since mid 2017 I haven't tried to calculate or measure exercise calories, as MFP is designed. Instead I prefer a methodology where I back-calculate TDEE using a spreadsheet I found on reddit. If your intake data is good you can easily do this as well by recording and observing your weight trend and adjusting your daily intake accordingly. Now, switching to this methodology did require some improvements to my data collection, but since I made the switch I've enjoyed far more control and visibility over my weight changes than the five years before (2012-2017) when I used MFP as designed and exhausted many avenues trying to foolproof capturing that energy spend. In retrospect attempting to measure every active calorie and having so much focus on "a good calorie burn" I fostered a dysfunctional relationship with exercise and forced myself into doing things I didn't like. This also bled into my relationship with food; thinking in terms of what I deserved or earned via exercise.

The instance that led me to rethink my approach was an occasion that one summer afternoon my wife and I decided to get Chipotle for dinner. I immediately pulled up MFP to check my calories and noticed that if I got my standard bowl with guacamole I was over on calories by almost the precise amount for a stated serving of guac. I thought for a brief moment about skipping the guac, but it occurred to me that I could run the ~3 miles to the restaurant and earn that guac. I was very excited... my wife was visibly less. She didn't say anything about how ridiculous she thought I was being but it was evident by a look of stark disbelief as I laid out my plan. I had her give me a head start and I ran to Chipotle, she drove and met me there, we ate, and rode home together. For that evening I was pretty happy with myself... "she just doesn't get it", I told myself... probably. It's been so long I don't specifically remember how long it took me to recognize I had a problem with the way I was viewing food and exercise but it was definitely that instance and my wife's reaction that led me to seek out a different methodology to run the math and I'm thankful for it. I wear an apple watch but don't use it for any health tracking functions. On the off chance I go for a run I'll use GPS for pace but don't worry about calculating any energy burn. With calories a non-factor I don't feel the pressure to optimize a workout for maximum expenditure and can focus on doing things I enjoy and what qualitative benefits they have.

I have one NOW, and have had one for a long time, but for my first 100 pounds or so (I've lost well over 200) I DIDN'T.

For me, it's a gadget that can give some interesting data points.

I lost 40 pounds using a paper diary to record my food in an imprecise way. I’ve never had a tracker.
I only found mfp in 2015 which was 5 years after. I used it to lose a further 10 pounds which I logged more carefully.

I lost around 40 Lbs in late 2012 into the spring of 2013...fitness trackers weren't really much of a thing. I think FitBit had it's first model out and it was basically just a fancy pedometer...it didn't synch with apps and all of that...pretty much just let you keep track of your steps. In general, people have been losing weight for hundreds of years without any of these devices. Anything you get calorie expenditure wise, whether it be from this app or another app or some device is only going to be an estimate. Outside of being in a calorimeter chamber, nothing is really "accurate" save for a power meter on a bike which can convert power generated in watts to about +/-3% accuracy for energy expenditure.