60 yrs and up

Hello, welcome to MFP and this thread!

Are you talking about the function where you take a photo of your meal and MFP is supposed to estimate the calories?

If so - speaking as a former professional with 30 years in information technology - that function just doesn't work well. The tecnnology just isn't mature enough yet to do a good job. I think the function was added for marketing, because it sounds so appealing. But even at its best, its matches will be of questionable accuracy.

Even the simplest foods, foods it recognizes, the estimates will be wild guesses. It may recognize 2 fried eggs on a plate. It has no idea how much butter or bacon grease was used to fry those eggs, and the frying fat can add more calories than the eggs themselves in some cases. A lot of foods, it simply can't recognize. Despite all the gee-whiz publicity about AI, it just isn't great at this kind of thing yet.

My best advice from my IT background, and from using MFP for over 10 years to both lose weight and keep it off, is to not try to use that function.

I admit that the most accurate way is more labor-intensive: Input each ingredient in the meal we actually ate, the number of eggs, how much butter, what brand of bread with how many slices, etc. Very most accurate is to weigh each thing on a food scale in grams and log it that way. You can use the bar-code scanner for some foods, but with caution: Sometimes those bar-coded records are out of date or inaccurate. Typing in to search, then choosing accurately from the multiple entries offered is the best way.

I know that's more work. It feels super difficult at first, but when we get in the swing of things, it's not very time-consuming - at least that's my experience.

It's a rare day now when I spend as much as 10 minutes over the whole day logging what I ate, because I've learned the tips and tricks and it's just automatic to use them. To me, that's a small price to pay for the benefits it's brought me.

I'm sorry to say this, but I think it's true. The good side of things is that there can be a huge payoff from learning to use MFP and using it routinely: I lost from obese to a healthy weight, all my blood tests that used to be awful (for things like cholesterol and triglycerides) are solidly normal and have been for a decade. That's a huge win, health-wise.

I'm cheering for you to succeed!

welcome to MFP @StillRockin4ever

You’re still here and that’s half the battle. I didn’t have your issues, although I was plainly headed in that genetic direction.

I think we make “making changes” so much bigger in our head than the actuality. We are weak and feeble creatures of habit.

I love what someone wrote on another thread about journaling. Why did you eat this? What else could you have eaten? Did you really want it? When I tried journaling for another pair of habits, simply writing down forced me to confront myself and actually think about these things. I broke both habits -lifetime habits- within a couple weeks.

I never thought to try that when starting weight loss. Just didn’t occur to me. Wish I had, though.

Whatever you do, don’t try to change everything at once. That’s just overwhelming.

Thanks for the info about Turmeric @AnnPT77 I’ve tried both the spice and pill form. I got the “mmmm, love cilantro” gene, but apparently got the “ate turmeric and burped dirt flavor for hours” gene, too.

Thanks @davisps552 looks like a good group, but after reading the list of rules, it's just too complicated for me. I need something that works for me, and that means no added stress. 😀

MFP has already done that one better, feature-wise: A person can post any challenge of any nature whatsoever over in that section - as long as it doesn't violate the Community guidelines - whether the app can count the stuff involved or not. It doesn't get more flexible than that! 😉😆

The 5% Challenge thread/group may suit some people perfectly, no criticism to those who love it and benefit. The fact that they like to repeatedly boost their challenge in multiple areas and in other threads, though . . . ? I guess maybe that helps new people find them, which may be good; but as someone who's been here for a long time, I'm not a huge fan, for my own personal sake.

Oh no!!! That's awful @springlering62 😥 I hope she will be ok. I am always careful to LIGHT mightself up when running in the morning and not to trust any cars. I think the most dangerous are those backing out of the driveways sometimes.

interesting discuss on the supplements.

@Jthanmyfitnesspal - I agree that challenges can be fun. There's a whole thread here where Garmin users are posting about their Garmin badges, which aren't exactly challenges but similar.

Most years, I participate in several Concept 2 challenges myself. (Concept 2 are the rowing machine and oar company, among other things.) The Holiday Challenge at Concept 2 is my usual self-trick to snap out of my annual denial that on-water rowing season is over, and get into some kind of indoor Winter workout routine.

I do have some concerns about weight loss challenges per se: When they're about the amount of weight being lost, or the pace of loss, I think they can easily turn toxic for some participants. Challenges around streak days or logged days and that kind of thing probably have less potential for negative side effects. Exercise challenges . . . well, details matter, how they're structured. I've seen some IRL that had potential for creating burnout or overdoing more than they had potential for fostering healthy habits.

I have a bias/prejudice - and I admit that's what it is - that the way to be serious about exercise or fitness is to have a thought-out, structured training plan, a plan intended to improve performance in some way(s). Something like C25K is a generic version of that kind of thing. I feel like many exercise challenges are more about ticking off completions of something (distance, number of sessions or hours, etc.), kind of taking the focus off performance or health improvement. But like I said, that's a prejudice.

The Challenges area here already has quite a range of different types of challenges for people to pick from. I can see how MFP counting more things, or letting users share those counts, might sort of automate more challenges. I'm not sure I necessarily think it would be better for the current user-created challenges to become or be replaced by some kind of MFP-organized corporate-sponsored challenge thing. That has pros and cons, seems like.

That resonates with me, @springlering62, though I can't say I've taken it quite that far personally. (I'm too lazy, honestly - I don't need things that tamp down obsession, because that's not my personal pitfall. My pitfalls are procrastination and hedonism. I need things that reinforce my commitment to what I know I need/ought to be doing to reach my personal goals.

From your comment, the main thing that resonates is rest days, or at least recovery. I've had and performed coach-generated training plans. They build in recovery, usually in the form of literal rest days, but always in some form or another. Recovery is an utterly essential piece of making fitness progress, and I think it's extra important in our demographic. I could get away with overdoing in my 20s, in the context of youthful resilience. I can't do that now, unless I want the stupid prizes that come from doing stupid things.

Maybe it's self-aggrandizing, but mostly what I like is self improvement, and some challenges feel more like they're promoting obsession than personal improvement. Sometimes there are arbitrary milestones.

I mentioned doing Concept 2 challenges. There are lots. I do the ones that fit into my goals - it's a way of gaming commitment to my own goals, an extra thing helping me adhere to what I know I need to do. Some of them literally are designed - I believe - to fit into a common annual training arc for on-water rowers. I DON'T do some of them because they'd be an overdo for me, though they wouldn't be for younger athletes who have a higher total training load that's realistic in their life context.

I'm not dissing people who find things like that motivating and not obsessive at all. We're all different. Personalization of tactics is key to success with any goals, IMO.

for your chocolate fix, may I recommend Lidl bakery chocolate chip cookies, if you’re lucky enough to have one near you?

I got one as a frequent shopper freebie I needed wine for a pasta recipe, but they couldn’t sell it to me til noon (Deep South it hasn’t been so long since we got Sunday alcohol at all.) anyway, I enjoyed that cookie so much that when I went back for the wine, I bought four more cookies And man, did I enjoy them!

My Sunday was cookie, cookie, cookie, silent version Phantom of the Opera with live organist and popcorn, cookie, cookie it was a good day

My box of Cadburys Curly Wurly’s arrived yesterday. If you were nearby, I’d share! They are only 94 calories, so I’m replacing my evening meringues, which went up, presumably due to tariffs. For some odd reason, the Curly Wurlys were cheaper on Amazon than when we bought them in the UK a few weeks ago. If you’ve never experienced a Curly Wurly, they are a flat, braided milk-chocolate covered caramel candy “bar”, and are very tasty.

Bonus, because the shape is so wierd, they’re easy to nibble and savor, and make last a long time

Much success to you on the density scan. Hope you see improvement.

And yes,

Alive is a great start on the rest of my day, every single day. I'm grateful

After learning of my friend’s terrible accident, I find myself thinking how grateful I am to be swimming, walking the dog, etc, and wishing she could be, too. She was an energizer bunny. Never stopped moving. I remember learning about NEAT and thinking her NEAT burn must be through the roof. I never asked her age, but assume she is in her 70’s.

I mentioned to my husband I’m thinking of starting to run again, in lieu of the cardio muscle classes. I think that’s what’s causing a lot of my joint pain lately. One instructor is all lunges, 1001 versions. It’s just too too much of similar movements. He’s insisting I run on the indoor track, so I don’t have an accident, too.

Our young yoga instructor, the one with the pacemaker, is a minister, and he does many of the funerals for his large church. He always ends every yoga practice by telling us to take a deep breath, that the breath is a gift to be grateful for, and that we can’t always assume there will be a next breath.

Sometimes I think people are just lying, too. That's a whole other can o' worms.

Do you think those hundred people really are exercise and fitness obsessed, or are some of them just copy/pasitn every day, cuz easier, and then they can be perfect?

Yeh, BigD.

I'm not one to "join" groups usually, but I think it's more my lack of interest in small talk. That's why I really like the internet. It's quiet. I can say what I want and then ignore what people have to say about it. 😄

Yes, I know that is super selfish - I mean - introverted of me.

One of my dislikes here in the MFP Community is the supposed accountability or motivation threads of a particular subtype: The ones where people mostly chit-chat and share life stuff - like we're doing here - but where the support as far as I can see is mostly people telling each other "oh, you didn't lose any weight this week because XYZ was just too tempting? that's OK, next week can be better" . . . then next week isn't better, over and over, from pretty much all the people participating. Sruck, seemingly forever.

Don't get me wrong: Obviously, I'm not totally sour on any self-indulgence ever (heh), and I don't think everyone needs to be super-strict every single day or make continuous fast progress. No. This is the only life we've got, and there can/should be various forms of enjoyment in it, some involving food or times when we spend more time on something besides our workout schedule.

And I don't think people who overeat are personally bad, sinful, failures, weak, whatever - they just haven't committed seriously to weight/health goals yet. I was in that position myself for years, decades even. Being in that spot isn't a blot on their value as human beings. But saying "I want to lose weight" or "I want to be fitter" and not acting in that direction? That's self-deception.

When the "support" seems to consist entirely of "yes, it's so hard" and "it's ok (again)" to the point where that becomes the group/thread culture . . . yeah, no thanks.

Welp, there's a lot to grab onto in the last exchange. @AnnPT77 :

"We" beat breast cancer 10 years ago and she had to be on the estrogen blocker for 5 years. She was transitioned to another drug (I think it was Tamoxifen, maybe) that did not go well (body aches, etc). It took a lot of gumption to say "no" after a year and a half. She really was uncomfortable on that treatment (whatever it actually way).

I like to have a "Pound Plus" bar of dark chocolate from Trader Joes around the house. I break it up into its pre-made squares and have 1-2 every night after dinner. About 65kcals each. Yum.

As an aside, the Apple challenges are based on what your watch reports based on your activity.

You can’t copy/paste or alter results. They come straight from the watch to the scoreboard.

Yes, there’s a lot of people out there really invested in the whole Apple Challenge psyche.

I would’ve be surprised at all to have multiple perfect score first place winners out of the tens of thousands or more who participate.

Perfect scores for team challenges (4 people you either know and do together, or teams you are randomly assigned to) were far fewer. There might be two or three teams tied for first out of 8 or 9,000 teams participating. I was in a first place team a couple times with some other MfP members when the boards were more active and newsfeed was available, and people kept up with that stuff.

I have found one relatively easy way to game the system for small ring bumps, which I won’t share here, but it’d be a PITA to do a full turn, much less your full three rings that way to get all the bonus points for the second and third turns.

😄 LOLOL!!!