How accurate is.my fitness pal

[Whatwouldscullydo]

I use it to track everything. Food, exercise etc and I like how it syncs with the other apps and adds my runs etc having started thread a few weeks back on the meal.planning I thought id solved the lack.of food issue and have managed to be able to consume a reasonable amount of food, up the carbs and get some snacks in without going over.

However I seem.to be being bombarded on face book ( american reels granted) with meal prep and what I.eat in a day videos and not only do they consume what looks like insane amounts of food ( not talking about massive portions of lettuce and cucumber to bulk it out) they some how also get to.comsume take.out and pizza and cookies and ice cream and entire tubs of cottage cheese and still be 2000 cal or less.

Made me wonder if there's something either really.odd about English food or the app I use is dramatically over estimating the nutritional values even though I use the bar code scanner. Is there a better app to use or is it that the people in the videos are using apps and there's just alot of BS on their take out menus?

It’s as accurate as you are if you are weighing your food and inputting the correct values.
Some of the influencers don’t track their micro-nutrients (fruit and veg).
Some aren’t aiming for 2000 cals a day, they might be bulking and aiming for 3000cals!

Be careful if just mindlessly scanning because there may be some inaccuracies. A lot of the data comes from users input (like wiki) so of course there will be errors and it’s worth cross checking with the info on the packet.

I used mfp a few years ago so I’d also be interested to hear if there is better out there now

I do weigh everything. Have to admit it was a shock at first to see how little a " serving" really was. These are definitely not bulking videos. These are definitely calorie deficit or maintenance videos. Im always 🤯 that mfp records 100g of cooked chicken as 165 calories amd am wrap around 150-180 calories but a meal of 5 chicken strips from a fast food joint with a side of sauce is only 250 ..

Where's this magic wrap and chicken that comes in so low

I use MFP and I am actually amazed how much food I get for my calories! Having gone from Slimming World where a plain iced donut would basically write off my whole day, I'm now eating all sorts of things that would have felt "bad" on other plans. Yesterday for lunch during a v busy day with a colleague I had a baguette and a donut from Gregg's, and I still had a decent dinner - on a different "plan" that sort of lunch would have derailed my whole day and I'd have been stuffing crisps all afternoon 🙈 (yeh my eating is super disordered)

That said, I eat less nutritious food now than on SW because I'd rather eat a chocolate bar than a banana - and now I have to count them both the chocolate bar always wins 😬 i used to snack on fruit and veg all day! I won't touch fruit at all now.

There's definitely a depressing side to it 🤣 nothing worse than killing your arse on a five km run only to discover you barely " earnt " a coffee and a Kitkat.

Although dont worry I know not to eat back exercise calories.

Its certainly helped me eat better. All those years of living off toast and soup, well I didnt realise how calorific bread was until mfp.

Don’t be fooled into eating calories burnt. Latest research shows exercise barely makes any difference. It’s all about the food.

That said, I eat less nutritious food now than on SW because I'd rather eat a chocolate bar than a banana - and now I have to count them both the chocolate bar always wins 😬 i used to snack on fruit and veg all day! I won't touch fruit at all now

Ironic that we are told that real foods are better but sometimes the only way to not go majorly over calories is to eat shit that's hardly got anything " real" in it because unless its rice cakes at 30 calories each you r fucked 🤣

I use mfp and I think it’s fairly accurate but I don’t track my exercise at all. I think it possibly over estimates the calories burned during exercise and I do a lot of weighs which I don’t think you can track on mfp anyway.

Well an 'entire tub of cottage cheese' is 250 calories and that's the full fat creamy Longley Farm one, so most others will be less.

A supermarket pizza is around 1000 for a mediumish one that would be a filling dinner.

leaving 750 calories for other stuff, which seeing as you've had two filling meals could be used on snacks.

But there are some errors on MFP as it's user entered data, so if you're eating prepared food, it will have the calories listed.

Anything that looks iffy in Google. I've spent far too much time work when it's quiet googling calorie contents 🤣😳.

These aren't shop bought pizzas though. These are slices from.take out with a star bucks..america really must have an amazing selection of foods with nothing in it. My skinny sugar free vanilla latte still totals up over 100 calories. Fuck knows how they fit pizza and a iced coffee with extra pumps of caramels on top of everything and still hit only 2000

Nutracheck is more accurate in my opinion. Easier to find foods also. But it is a paid app after an intro offer. I like it way more than MFP

The MFP exercise calories are way over estimated. I never take any account of them.
I did read recently that there is a 20% tolerance either way on food package labelling (so that 200 calories biscuit may be 160 or up to 240), but I don’t know if this is true as it seems quite a lot.
Ignore the FB stuff.
I bulk up everything with vegetables. I feel the thing is not to eat as little as possible but as much as possible within my allowance.

As far as exercise goes I kinda Google the average fir that particular activity then lower it slightly. The spin bikes and treadmills give the values on the screens and my.programmed in averages are always lower anyway so hopefully that's enough if a buffer zone. The only thing I have to really guess at is my lifting sessions but hopefully as im.guessimg low ish anyway its not to far out