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melodyeve4580 · December 15

I am Melody! I live in Northern Michigan (of the lower peninsula). I work in a machine shop. My husband is a heavy equipment mechanic. We love the snow. We snowmobile, but also show our vintage snowmobiles. We camp and hunt. We tend to be homebodies beyond that. I do try to get with my scrapbooking friends for at least a couple of crops every year. For exercise, I bought a walking pad and have been trying to use that 4 times a week.
I just downloaded this app in the last couple days, as recommended by my nutritionist, as well as my family nurse practitioner. I used it for the first time yesterday but I didn't get everything in. It isn't as user friendly as the last app I used to use for sure.....but my goal is to track my macros better, which the previous app did not do. So if anybody has any tips on helping with the learning curve of getting my food inputted when most of what I make is homemade dishes, not anything I can just scan from some box or bottle. I was able to put in a complete custom recipe last night before I chose one portion of that as my dinner..... It seemed to work I think? Time consuming but I'll be eating that meal for 4 days so.....So maybe that's what I'll have to do with all of my custom recipes. I guess I'm concerned about making corrections later like for instance let's say I put in a recipe and I say it's going to be 8 servings. Let's say by that time the meal is done, it's only been 6 servings or maybe it's been 10 servings. Can I go back on the days that I've put that in as my dinner and edit to correct my calories?? Or if I go into the recipe and correct how many servings it is will it automatically go back on my days I've already inputted that and autocorrect it itself? I have been recommended to use the free version of this app and so that's what I downloaded at this point. Does anybody have any feelings one way or the other on the premium paid app vs the free version. Is the premium better for inputting recipes especially customized ones? Is it better for macro tracking? Give me your opinions please. Obviously my goal is to lose weight and move more. I would welcome Friend requests from ladies with similar goals.

AnnPT77 · December 16

Hi, Melody, and welcome!

I'm Ann. By coincidence, I live downstate of you, kind of near the palm of the mitten, greater Lansing area.

I've been here on MFP for about 9 years, loss for a little under a year, maintenance since. I'll try to answer some of your questions.

First, yes, there is a learning curve. There are also some features that are a little bit more work at first, but create some things that make logging easier later.

Hang in there, you'll get this! Most meals now only take me a minute or so to log, which for me is a small price to pay for staying at a healthy weight and getting reasonable nutrition while I do it.

I'm going to quote your post but just snip some stuff down to just questions, for length.

melodyeve4580 wrote: »

So if anybody has any tips on helping with the learning curve of getting my food inputted when most of what I make is homemade dishes, not anything I can just scan from some box or bottle. I was able to put in a complete custom recipe last night before I chose one portion of that as my dinner..... It seemed to work I think? Time consuming but I'll be eating that meal for 4 days so.....So maybe that's what I'll have to do with all of my custom recipes. I guess I'm concerned about making corrections later like for instance let's say I put in a recipe and I say it's going to be 8 servings. Let's say by that time the meal is done, it's only been 6 servings or maybe it's been 10 servings. Can I go back on the days that I've put that in as my dinner and edit to correct my calories??

If you repeat the same recipes multiple times, then that feature is useful. Once you have the recipe entered, you can re-use it for more servings, or for next time you make the same dish. If it ends up being a different number of servings than at first guess, you can adjust for that with arithmetic when you log it. For example, if I created the recipe as 10 servings, but actually ate one-eighth of the whole dish, I could log that as 1.25 servings (10 divided by 8).

Personally, I like to make the whole recipe, noting the ingredients on scrap paper, cook it, weigh the finished recipe on my food scale, then enter it to MFP, using the number of grams as the number of servings. MFP will give a warning message because it wonders if I really mean 1173 servings or whatever, but it will let me go on and use that number. Then, when I eat the food, I can put my plate on the food scale, zero the scale, put my serving on the plate, and enter the number of grams in my serving as the number of servings I ate. It sounds weird, but it's pretty easy.

Honestly, scanning isn't that great IMO anyway. I have premium, but never scan. I don't use that many packaged foods, plus don't usually have the package and my phone in my hand when cooking (IMO: Messy! fussy! ). On top of that, the food database is crowd-sourced, i.e. entered by regular MFP users, so no guarantee that the bar code entry is accurately entered or up to date with the current formulation.

You might want to take a look at the Meals feature, too. When you log using MFP Recipes feature, you enter a number of servings and get one line in your diary like "Ann's lasagna" (or whatever I named it) with all the calories/nutrients in that amount of the recipe. When repeating recipes exactly, that's great.

With the Meals feature, you put a list of ingredients in the meal, and later when you log that, you can still log fractions of that pre-created meal if you like. Whether you log it as one meal or some fractional meal, what appears in your diary is all the individual ingredients line by line. You can then edit any of the ingredients to be smaller or larger quantities that one time, or delete some ingredients entirely. So, if you make more or less the same kind of sandwiches or salads or something routinely, you can save a whole list of ingredients that might be in a normal sandwich, copy that into your diary with one click, and delete or adjust a few things to reflect your one-time differences.

Or if I go into the recipe and correct how many servings it is will it automatically go back on my days I've already inputted that and autocorrect it itself?

It doesn't go backwards when you edit the recipe. It just uses the updated recipe next time you log it.

I have been recommended to use the free version of this app and so that's what I downloaded at this point. Does anybody have any feelings one way or the other on the premium paid app vs the free version. Is the premium better for inputting recipes especially customized ones?
[/quote}

I have premium now, but used free MFP for several years at first. I usually recommend that people start with free MFP, learn the basics, then decide whether any of the premium features are necessary or helpful for them. With a little experience, it's a lot easier to look at what premium offers, and decide whether it would help you. The free version has enough features for most people to get started, and premium isn't different enough to feel like it's a whole different app that requires learning a bunch of new stuff.

There are a few cases with special diets (such as fasting routines, or net carb stuff, etc.) where premium might help right away, but for someone who's generally just trying to cut down while eating regular stuff on a normal schedule, free MFP tends to have all the main features needed, I think.

Premium definitely doesn't have anything special that makes custom recipes easier.

Is it better for macro tracking?

Maybe. It depends. Again, I'd start with free MFP and learn the basics, then decide. One of the reasons I like premium is for macro tracking, because I like to set my macros in grams rather than percents, plus have control over how the macros are allocated when I add exercise and get extra calories to eat because of that. But that's IMO a "nice to have" thing, not mandatory. I did fine with free MFP at first.

Give me your opinions please. Obviously my goal is to lose weight and move more. I would welcome Friend requests from ladies with similar goals.

I hope the above helps.

I know it seems like a lot at first, kind of overwhelming maybe even, but after you've used it for a while it gets easier. Part of that is just the learning, but part is how MFP works.

For example, when you log particular foods, and check the entries to make sure they're accurate, those checked-out entries will hang around in your recent/frequent foods as long as you eat them semi-frequently, and come up first when you search for a food. You'll also begin to build up a collection of recipes and meals you can re-use, saving time that way.

As far as finding friends and getting support here, what I'd suggest is joining in some thread(s) here in the Community. That's a good way to get to know a few people, get help, share and track goals, ask questions, and that sort of thing. The Challenges and Motivation parts of the Community have the highest concentration of threads like that. Here are direct links to those:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/motivation-and-support
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/challenges

There are a few in other areas, too, usually more topic-specific, like people sharing meal ideas or talking about workouts. If you read around a bit as you have time, you'll find them.

Most often, if you're supposed to do something special to join in the thread, the first post will explain what that is. If there's no explanation, usually you just reply to the post to join in. In those cases, it can help to read the most recent few posts to get a feel for the "subculture" of that thread, see if it suits you.

Don't be dismayed if you open one up and see old posts. The ones on the first page or so of each topic have all had recent activity, but it's at the end on the high-numbered pages. You can jump straight there with the number/arrow keys near the top and bottom of each page of the thread.

In addition, if you have general questions about anything, how to use a feature, how to lighten-up recipes, kinds of workouts, whatever - don't be afraid to post questions in the relevant part of the Community. People here vary widely in communication styles, everything from warm'n'fuzzy to tough love, but IME nearly everyone truly wants to help others. It's also good to comment on other people's threads, if you have solid information or ideas relevant to their initial post.

The "add a friend" function is probably more useful once you find some people who are on your wavelength via the Community. MFP friends in the "Add friends" sense can send each other private messages/direct messages, and can look at each others' diaries if the other person has decided to share their diary with friends. That's about all that function does.

I'd suggest a small amount of caution when accepting friend requests, because sometimes there are . . . um, inappropriately flirty guys, or people selling things and what-not. If you get any of those, report them to MFP staff, who take those things seriously IME, unlike on some other social networks. You can also block the person . . . but please, always report them, to help prevent them preying on other people.

I'll close by saying that I think MFP can be a great tool, with some patient persistence. I joined back in mid 2015, lost from class 1 obese to a healthy weight by sometime in early 2016, and have stayed at a healthy weight since, still using MFP . . . that, after having been overweight to obese for around 3 previous decades. For me, the quality of life benefits have been truly huge, beyond what I'd imagined, and more than worth the effort of learning how to use the app efficiently.

I'm cheering for you to succeed, too!

nossmf · December 16

Welcome, Melody! Hard to follow an Ann post, but here's a few other links you may find helpful...

There are some great threads created by our members, bookmarked to the top of each category that may be helpful. Just look for "Most Helpful Posts - whatever the category name is”.

For example:

You can also ask your questions in any category that interests you, read posts or questions made by other members, join a group, or add some friends.

Here are some frequently asked questions that may also be helpful: FAQ's

xbowhunter · December 16

Welcome!

I'm in Southern Ontario and can see Detroit on a clear day... lol

I used to deer hunt in Michigan and it's a great state indeed!

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