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Weight loss chat

A space to talk openly about weight loss journeys and challenges. Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. You may wish to speak to a medical professional before starting any diet.

My Fitness Pal

6 replies

jemimafuddleduck · 31/05/2024 21:06

Hi all
I'm coming to the conclusion after trying lots of weight loss diets that I just need to consume less calories. When I've tried with MFP in the past I've struggled as unless I have a ready meal I find it hard to accurately track what I'm having, for example with home cooked meals.
Any tips or advice welcomed!

OP posts:
uhOhOP · 01/06/2024 01:19

Set out the ingredients for the dish you've decided to cook.

Add each item to the app, using the the nutritional information on the packaging. If it's something that doesn't have the information on the packaging, as can be the case with fruits, for example, or if you've bought loose fruits or vegetables, you can find the information online, on the supermarket's website.

Then weigh out everything you need to cook that dish. Not herbs and spices, but everything else. Log every ingredient you've weighed for that one dish under the same meal. Doesn't matter whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, or whatever.

Then cook.

Once the food has cooled down, weigh the whole thing. Make a note of the number of grams.

Go back to the app, press the 3 dots menu, select "edit diary" and tick every entry you made for that meal. Then press the 3 dots menu again and select "save meal". I find it helpful to include the total weight in the meal name.

Now you know how much the entire dish weighs, you just need to weigh out each portion of it that you serve yourself. When you want to log it in the app for tomorrow's dinner, or whatever, you will just pres "add food", then "my meals", then choose the meal (but don't press the "+" icon). Press where it says "number of servings", and enter the fraction of the dish you've served yourself. So when you weighed the entire cooked dish, say it weighed 1,000g. If you served up a 350g portion, you'll enter 0.35.

Now you have an accurate (kind of...) log of your calories. It's only "kind of" accurate if you are the only person who is going to eat all of the portions.

I hope that helps! I know it's really long and it might sound complicated, or something, but once you get into the habit of doing it, it's fine. I won't lie, though – it is boring and it does take time.

If you are keen to lose weight, I'd recommend logging everything that has more than negligible calories. Some people do not count vegetables, but they do add up over the week.

Anyway, yes, I hope this helps you!

DDisnotnormal · 01/06/2024 07:36

I know you mention MFP in your post but Nutracheck is really good and very user friendly! You do have to pay, think I payed around £30 for the year. You can use it free for a week to see if you like it. Therr is also a free version but i think that is very basic. For home cooked meals use the my meals tab. It has a scanner you can use for packaged food and there are very few things that don't come up on it. Good luck!!x

jemimafuddleduck · 01/06/2024 08:32

Thank you both, very helpful!

OP posts:
CharlotteBog · 01/06/2024 08:39

What were the other diets that didn't reduce your calorie intake? It's not a surprise they didn't work.

Leavingasinkingship · 01/06/2024 10:23

I use nutracheck (after using MFP for a long time) and it is much, much better for this.
I batch cook a lot and with nutracheck I add the ingredients as I'm cooking, weigh it at the end and then I can use that to record whether I have 100g or 300g from what's in the fridge.

I've also got in the habit of weighing my food at I serve it. Simply putting my dish onto the scale and resetting to zero before I add the next thing. Honestly doesn't take any time and really helped me get a grasp of portions. It sounds a bit weird I guess, but for me knowing my tracking was accurate and not guessing really helped with my motivation.

jemimafuddleduck · 10/06/2024 22:15

To those who recommended nutracheck - thank you! It's so much better than MFP, and after my free trial I've just signed up to the paid version as I'm finding it's really keeping me on track.

OP posts:
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