I absolutely despise My Fitness Pal

[PaulHollywoodsSexGut]

I have to use it as it’s all linked up to my Vitality account, Garmin and Strava but GOD ALMIGHTY
how quickly did I forget that logging homemade foods is a fucking ballache.

For instance, I know my breakfast bircher is 180cals. But I don’t know how much carbs, fat, salt, protein and sugar is in it, meaning when I save it on MFP it doesn’t contribute to an accurate picture of what I’m eating IYSWIM?

Has anyone else had this and cracked it?

You can add food or build recipes so your regular food and meals are in the system.

Is this a homemade recipe ?

Absolutely; they all will be. I just get frustrated at the granularality of having to log every part of every food that contributes to every meal!

Yes. It takes a while at the start. But building recipes and meals are the way forward.

Then the majority of meals only require the correct meal to be selected which takes seconds.

I have a set breakfast and lunch and batch cook tea. Therefore I have five evening meals in recipe format to select when appropriate.

Now logging a day takes seconds.

MFP works much easier if you eat a repetitive and/or packaged diet. If you cook your own food and eat a lot of variety it is, like you say, a fucking ballache.

If you cook from scratch mostly, would something like Slimming World work better for you?

I assume that 'breakfast bircher' is some combination of muesli/oats, yogurt and fruit, so you just make this and count 42 g muesli as your HEB choice (you get one per day)

You eat fresh unprocessed food that you don't have to count or measure - lean meat, fish, eggs, pulses, fruit and veg.

You are supposed to eat fat free dairy, but as long as you don't go mad, you can have the normal type instead - yogurt and cottage cheese etc.

Some milk or one small piece of cheese a day and some wholemeal bread or a serving of cereal and then no more than 2-300 calories of pretty much everything else, ie alcohol, cake, chocolate, biscuits, other high calorie food, or more cheese or bread.

I hear you @Barbaraofseville

I tried SW and it did my head in. Appreciate the HEB/syns way of understanding eating is structured but it made my brain rattle.

As insane as it sounds I’m just trying to get down to three balanced, healthy and nutritious meals a day. No more, no less. I just need to monitor what I’m doing as I’ve taken up running and weights and I need to watch I’m not creating too big a calories deficit too soon IYSWIM (I wish!).

I'm doing slimming world but have come to a standstill so I typed all my food into mfp. As you say, it's a massive pita typing in all the ingredients to home cooked meals. It said I'd eaten something like 900 calories in 3 meals. I did a 30 minute jog and it said I'd burnt off 400 calories even though my watch said it was 90! If I have to type in all my ingredients and measure everything out it will do my head in!