"My Fitness Pal" has made me realise -

[SineadTemptation]

there is no wonder I don't lose weight!!!

I thought my diet was okish and couldn't understand why I didn't lose weight. Well with the calorie counting food diary on myfitnesspal I can already see where I'm going wrong.

It's allowing me 1200 calories a day and after my breakfast, a few cups of coffee and a few chocolates I now have just 600 calories to play with for the rest of the day.

Had it not been for the diary, I would be thinking I hadn't eaten much today. It just shows how these little treats throughout the day add up. Anyone have any similar experiences of MyFitnessPal?

Oops, i dont count coffee or tea?! Should I be???

I agree, I found it so hard to stick to 1200 a day. Decided to give myself Friday off and gave up inputting once I reached 3000!

I have lost 4lbs this week, I'm a big fan......

yep - me too. its fab isnt it.

Took me a while to get into the swing of managing the 1200 cals. But after a while you work out what you can eat lots of that still fills you up and what is just wasted cals.

ive lost 15lbs in 2 months :)

before when i was dieting id of though i was 'living on air' and struggliing to lose weight, when i was maybe still eating 1500/1800 cals.

Just realised I can't actually count.....I have lost 3 not 4?!

It is a very useful tool and stops the denial! I also LOVE entering the calories burnt during exercise and watching the total allowance go up, so satisfying and gives more motivation to go to the gym/pool.

I agree. Too easy to have healthy day and eat 1800, which is a reasonable amount for maintenance but unlikely you'll loose on that.

I started off with tescodiets which is similar (but you pay but you do get support) now use MFP. Weighing and logging stops the denial.

This thread has made me bite the bullet and sign up, and as I thought, yes, the amount of crap I eat without realising it is .

... And I only have 390 cals for the rest of the day! (Have had lunch though, phew!)

I mean look:

Kellogg's - All Bran Original, 62 g 1/2 cup 160 46 2 8

Generic - Tea With 50ml 2% Fat Milk, 1 Mug 23 0 0 0

Berocca - Orange Effervescent Tablet, 1 tablet 0 0 0 0

Lunch
Bananas - Raw, 1 large (8" to 8-7/8" long) 121 31 0 1

Generic - Golden Delicious Apple, 1 apple (4oz) 80 22 1 0

Pear - 1 Fresh, 1 Pear 86 23 0 1

Activia - Light-Fat Free Peach Yogurt, 1 container (113g) 70 12 0 4

New York Bagel Co. - Wholemeal Bagels, 1 bagel 223 37 2 10

Heinz - Classic Cream of Chicken Soup, 300 ml can 139 13 8 5

All healthy stuff and I still have dinner to go with only 298 calories left in my allowance!! I will just have to stop eating fruit!!!

yep - with you. before mfp I would have had a little chat with myself (congratulating myself and a healthy day and i wouldn't have counted the fruit, the milk, the salad dressing, finishing dd's tea.. etc...

also I'm good at counting the food I haven't had ....didn't have a biscuit with my coffee, didn't put butter on my toast rather than what i have had. Not a brilliant way of living!

Yes yes yes. It has really made me look at my portion sizes more than anything else. Especially pasta - shocking how many calories are in that!

Me too.
I thought my diet was good, but it's so easy to go way over your allowance with one small snack of the wrong type. But it's also a great motivator to exercise!!

Yesterday I wasted OVER HALF my calorie allowance (620 cals!) on snacks - that really made me think!

Hey I've just signed up too. Used WLR to lose weight very successfully before but myfitnesspal is free! One thing I noticed was that the calorie allowance was much lower than WLR - for eg it gave me 1850 pper day to maintain - at 30yo and 12st 6 that's impossible. WLR gives me 2100 and it has never let me down before, so I changed it manually on MFP to 1600 for 1lb a week loss. I can't function on 1200, and I fail. At 1600+ exercise cals I can do it. Just a tip! www.weightlossresources.co.uk has a free trial for 24 hours so worth signing up for comparison.

MFP says 1,650 for me to maintain - I'm 5 foot 4 inches and 9 stone, and thats with exercise, I think thats about right, although clearly would be able to eat a lot more to maintain 12 stone 6 pounds (my starting weight was 12 stone 5lbs) - I have been doing 1200 a day to loose.

I'm going to up it gradually, to 1650 and see if I can maintain, although my friend who is 6 months ahead of me says to maintain she has to stick to 1,500 to maintain.

HOWEVER for maintenance think its a lot about quality of calories as well as quantity.

Me too! I think it is brilliant!

When I was a kid, my parents had a little book with calories in and they did graphs of their weight as they lost it and pinned them on the fridge (this an annual, pre-holiday procecss makes them sounds like loons - they aren't, they are lovely and look great in their 60s!)

Anyway, as everyone says, I was roughly calorie counting in my head and having no idea about why I wasn't losing weight. In fact I was probably easily eating 2000 calories a day (so no mystery there then!) and have already lost 6lb in a couple of weeks of using MFP. I did join WW online once, but I dont really want the support part - I eat when I am bored, it makes me fat, I need to stop and I know that I am the one who has to make the decison to change so I allways just ignored it - great to be able to have the best bits of the service for free. Going to try and lose my remaining 1.5 stones before they start charging for it !

my parents had a book too - and then calorie counting went out of fashion rather I think. I find it helpful though - especially as the hard work is done for you

O. M. G. Meal out plus wine yesterday = over 1,000 cals over the limit fuuuuuck! Horrible moment when it says "if every day were like today... you would be a whale by the end of the month" not good!

I've just reactivated my account after an absence of ahem months. I used it quite obsessively at the beginning of last year and lost 20lbs but I've changed jobs to one where I drive to the door and don't leave my seat for 8 hours so a stone of that has gone back on.

I'm thinking of walking to work but I'd have to leave about an hour earlier each day to do that and getting up is not a strong point!