Help.

Hi Esther Potter. I can't see your diary but it might just be me as I'm having some problems with this website.

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself, your age, weight and size for example? How consistent are you with logging? Do you use a foodscale? Do you exercise and do you eat back exercise calories?

PAPYRUS3 wrote: »

Sorry to not help you OP, but I can't access anyone's member page - when I click on 'Member's Profile' it always states:

If you get the 404 error, look at the URL. If you see a bunch of numbers instead of a username (example: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/profile/1008304529) you can replace those numbers with the member's name you are trying to look up and then hit enter.

It's a workaround. Maybe they'll fix it at some point.

- Tracey's - Curried Sausages, 1 cup: no idea what this even is, but 111 calories for lunch seems really unlikely, especially if it includes sausages

-> No idea how to measure a sausage in a cup to be honest, but lets assume it's a sausage and a small amount of sauce. A standard german sausage is about 300 calories. That's for a 100gr sausage. So this might be as little as 35 grams of sausage. Just to give some perspective.

- Stew Beef - Stew Beef, 4 oz: perhaps 220 calories per 4 oz. is possible, but a lunch that weighs only 4 oz. seems highly unlikely.

-> 4 oz are about 113 grams (need something I can work with). stew beef tends to be fairly fatty. 134-166 calories per 100 grams. So here we have beef, possibly a bit of veg, cooking oil and water. We could possibly fill the stew with 40gr beef (60 calories), 40 gr veg with potatoes (60 calories), water (nothing), 8gr oil (72 calories) = 192 calories plus stock and spices. Might work. But: 113grams is tiny! That's less than 100ml water. So basically a shotglass maybe. Seems unlikely.

- Home Made - Crockpot Mince Stew, 100 g: perhaps 163kcal/100gr is possible, but again such a small lunch

-> yeah, calories seem fairly ok, though I'd think mince might be higher in calories, depending on the type. Again, it's a portion the size of a shotglass.

- Stirfry beef 4 ounces - 120 calories: yet again this seems like a tiny dinner

-> this seems very low. 100gr beef and nothing else? Yeah. But there'll be oil, possibly veggies, spices, rice? And again a portion the size of a shotglass.

- dinner for 233 calories - 0.5cup cauliflower, 100gr cooked cabbage, 4oz sirloin tip steak and 100gr leeks: 4 oz. of meat isn't a lot, and I imagine these foods were prepared using oil/butter too, which adds calories

-> Yep.

PAPYRUS3 wrote: »

@springlering62 - Can I ask you what you experience on the site when you attempt to view someone's diary? My experience is: '...page you were looking for could not be found' when I click on 'member's profile.
I am trying to figure out if it's the same 'glitch' in the system that others seem to be having, or if it's just my system.

I am able to view friend's dairies though...

This is what I see in the iOS app, and it “loads” indefinitely:

Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.

To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that's what MFP used to pull in entries.

Your entry for sirloin tip steak - Steak, 4 ounce 170 calories is not a ADMIN-created entry that MFP pulled from the USDA database - these indicate the "raw" or "cooked" state for meat.

Beef, bottom sirloin, tri-tip roast, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, choice, raw: 4 oz = 197 calories.
Beef, bottom sirloin, tri-tip roast, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 0" fat, choice, cooked, roasted: 4 oz = 221 calories.

If your steak was cooked, that is a difference of 51 calories if you had 4 ounces, but since you're not weighing, it could have been heavier, possibly MUCH heavier.

The day I got my food scale was the last morning I had my peanut butter and banana breakfast smoothie, because 32 grams of peanut butter is WAY smaller than what I thought

Hey estherpotter, it's great that you reached out. Many of these inconsistencies are easy to make. We just don't think about how much 4oz of food is, or how fast we move. I hope you don't mind that we're geeking out a bit and that you take something home from this. So if you've neither gained nor lost weight over a longer period of time then it simply means you've been eating at maintenance level. To get an idea how many calories those are you could set MFP to maintenance and see how many calories this gives you. Add a bit extra for exercising. Basically, in order to lose weight if you're weight has been stable over the past three years you have to eat less than you've been eating.

estherpotter1 wrote: »

You are all right.I have been guessing when tracking calories.I have to track properly.So thanks folks.

I hope you’ll check back in with us and let us know how it’s going, and if we can offer more (reams of) advice.

Where are you getting the 620 calories from. That sounds like a lot
You've earned 620 extra calories from exercise today

Have you considered a fitness tracker? Mine revolutionized my weight loss journey- how I thought, how I calculated, major adjustment of expectations, particularly realizing how few calories exercise actually burns versus how much some foods “cost”. Made me totally reevaluate what I was eating.

I use Apple Watch, daughter uses Fitbit. We both love them. Garmin is another good one. Costco has some good deals or ask around. I guarantee you e got a friend who bought one with the best intentions but now it’s sitting in a drawer.