My Fitness Pal questions

[Overweight]

Hello, I've just started with MFP and have some questions. I'm really sorry if these are covered elsewhere, but I haven't found anything.

• I've been scanning barcodes to find food and have no probs adjusting the portion size. Am I ok to trust what's already input when the barcode results come up, or should I be checking them against the packet too?

• I've created a few meals, from a cup of tea (bag+water+milk) to more complex dinners. If I later amend a quantity, will it retrospectively update everywhere I've used that meal? I think the answer is not because I've notice in the diary it lists the ingredients by line rather than e.g. saying 'cup of tea'.

• how does the method of cooking affect calories/app inputs? E.g. tonight DH cooked a meal including beef mince which he browned first in a frying pan, so I've included half of the meat and half of the oil he use in the pan. Is that sufficient?

- I've been scanning barcodes to find food and have no probs adjusting the portion size. Am I ok to trust what's already input when the barcode results come up, or should I be checking them against the packet too?

I always check the scanned barcodes for accuracy and if it's not accurate you can add it for yourself, so you know it's 100%.

- I've created a few meals, from a cup of tea (bag+water+milk) to more complex dinners. If I later amend a quantity, will it retrospectively update everywhere I've used that meal? I think the answer is not because I've notice in the diary it lists the ingredients by line rather than e.g. saying 'cup of tea'.

No it keeps old records accurate at the time of recording.

- how does the method of cooking affect calories/app inputs? E.g. tonight DH cooked a meal including beef mince which he browned first in a frying pan, so I've included half of the meat and half of the oil he use in the pan. Is that sufficient?

You're doing it correctly. You can't miss the oil out if you're having half the amount used in the frying process, you're right to include it.

Check the packets too. Many people add the wrong info in for bought items and recipes.
I once spent ages having a treat every night, sometimes 2, because it was listed as only 80 cals. I finally imputed the ingredients and calculated a portion and it turned out to be 360 calories!

No it doesn’t amend retrospectively.

If you’ve had half the amount cooked then inputting half the oil & half the meat makes sense. No different from inputting all the ingredients into recipes then saying it makes 2 portions because you are never going to know exactly how much of the total oil you are actually eating so makes sense to me.

Do NOT add your exercise in MFP. It gives you additional calories ‘earned’ but it wildly overestimates. The only time I never lost was when I added my exercise so thought I could eat back calories earned.

It does get easier and quicker after a while to add your food but I think it’s probably why I stick to eating similar things so often, it’s far easier to just click and add old faves rather than input from scratch!

Thank you. I'll double check packets tomorrow.

I don't think I ate quite half of what was made because we have some leftover but presumably there's no other way to sort out what you've had than do it bottom up from ingredients and guess your share, as accurately as possible. I'm supposed to be making a slow cooker casserole at the weekend so that will be an interesting one to calculate what I get to eat and how much of each.

It is picking up my steps from my phone but I'm ignoring them from the calorie total because I know it's measuring isn't accurate.

Check. I had bok choy logging as smoked german klobasa😂 Nearly had a heart attack when it logged the calories.😂

I'm supposed to be making a slow cooker casserole at the weekend so that will be an interesting one to calculate what I get to eat and how much of each.
I paid for pro and there I can create a recipe. Put everything in and then you put how many portions it was in the end. Perfect for batch cooking.
Otherwise, without pro, you might have to get pen and paper, then divide quantity of ingredients by portions and log it and save as a meal?

I have linked my Fitbit to my MFP, set my activity level to sedentary and then eat all the extra calories I get. Seems pretty accurate to me as I've always lost weight at the expected rate, but I have my Fitbit clipped to my bra, instead of wearing it on my wrist, and most of my exercise is step based (walking and running)

For recipes, I set the number of portions as the weight in grammes of the whole lot then I can just weigh and easily log my portion. I've even got the weight of my different pans as a note on my phone so I can work out the net weight of what I am making!

I hadn't realised that saving your own recipes was a pro feature! Worth it for that alone.

Actually I don't think it is a premium feature? It's just in Recipes, Meals and Foods.

Definitely isn't premium feature

I've saved my own recipes and I don't have premium.
Isn't there a check if the calorie count has been verified? Easy enough to do with packaged foods but you can get obsessive weighing everything you eat. I tend to eat the same breakfast and lunch and there's only so many different dinners in my cooking repertoire so once I log it first time it's there.
Definitely the exercise calculations are way too generous!

Oh is it? I swear to god it used to be premium🙈 Good if it isn't!

Thank you, really helpful replies.

@TheSmallAssassin I don't have a fit bit but I'm contemplating it. What difference does clipping it to your bra make?

I don't wear a watch anymore and even when I did, always removed as soon as I got home or to work.

I think clipping it to your bra or belt or something is more accurate because you only get proper steps, on your wrist you might get extra ones (playing the piano is quite good, apparently!) or lose some, when pushing a supermarket trolley, for example. You wouldn't get heart rate monitoring when it's clipped though, so depends on what you want.