App features & motivation

I have been here for years and have to say... the feature that keeps me most accountably is utilizing these forums. Get into a thread, or two, or three with people who check in most days. Check in as well, get to know them, read their ups and downs while sharing your own. I have 4 or 5 threads that I keep bookmarked and check in pretty often. A lot of times new ones start on the first of each month, but don't be afraid to jump in mid-month and ask to join.

Also, some of the groups and private challenges are great! I am in the Hogwarts challenge group and they start a new term every 2 months or so. Weekly challenges that include food (potions), exercise (quidditch), etc. Having a theme and being pushed outside your boundaries can be fun and help make it more of a game than just sticking to a diet.

There are a lot of features from the dashboard, diaries, newsfeed, recipe builders, etc. It really is the forums and challenges that make this work for me the best though.

The boards have been the most helpful in a “learning way”, and brought me up to snuff to learn to use weighing and logging which were most helpful in a “management” way.

The most “motivational” thread on the boards was the NSV (non-scale victories) thread over on the success stories board.

I have read every single post on that thread and silently cheer every single one of them. Every single post helped me through some low periods when the weight didn’t move, by helping me recognize and appreciate improvement elsewhere.

Plus some were good for really good laughs. 👍🏻

Another feature that’s been huge for us, was the ability to share meals between users. My husband joined MFP about a year ago. He simply copies my meal from my diary, and then adjusts portion sizes as need be. Typically he doesn’t have to. I get to eat “man sized” portions because I work out more than he does, but like last night when dinner included tomato soup with Italian chicken sausage he was able to easily delete the sausage, which he doesn’t care for. It’s really easy peasy for couples.

TaariniNeelam wrote: »

Hello all! I have used this app in past but not all features. Would love to know if there is a feature you love or don’t like. Also, please drop me a kind sentence because I fear about always staying fat (not a new picture and totally enhanced)

For me, logging and the Community are the big pluses for me. The "in 5 weeks" prediction thing is IMO idiotic. MFP should adjust the algorithm for applying METS in the exercise diary (for those who use the MFP exercise database), but people would hate it if they did.

Like Spring said, we can't DM you if we aren't your MFP friends (and I'm a seriously sub-par MFP friend anyway). What I'd say is this:

I stayed fat - overweight then up to class 1 obese - for around 30 years, most of my adult life. Then I lost weight with MFP, down to a healthy weight. I've stayed at a healthy weight for 7 years since. You can do this, if you commit to it. I'm not special, others who do similar things aren't special: Just regular people like you.

Find a relatively easy set of new habits that gradually take you to a healthy weight, and that you can continue almost on autopilot to stay there permanently. Don't do extreme, very-unpleasant things. That's not necessary. Experiment, analyze results, adjust your plans, and keep working at that until you find the new habit set that works for you. Just don't give up. Persist. You'll succeed.

I really like that I can look at my weekly calorie and nutrition averages. It’s helped me “get over” the days where I eat everything in sight (I log everything no matter what) and that it doesn’t undo the work I’ve already done.

I also like the “you’ll weigh x in 5 weeks” estimate, even though I know it doesn’t account for variable factors during those 5 weeks. If I have a REALLY big food day, seeing the projected weight makes me think twice about having more big food days.