We use this app to help us on our fast days. You can hold your phone over the food bar chart and it tells you exactly how many calories in a serving etc.
This topic contains 25 replies, has 25 voices, and was last updated by Sherbert688 8 years, 9 months ago.
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I’ve been using MyFitnessPal since 3rd June this year, one month before I started on the 5:2. It’s a great application and has almost become my bible. However, I’m now looking at ones that are more in tune with 5:2.
It’s great to be able to scan the bar code of a product and it even works on French nutritional labels which is great for me living in France. My back-up for this is a great French nutritional value site http://www.tabledescalories.com which gives all the values for French food and more.
The best thing for me is to have my phone with me and to be able to update my food intake even when I’m eating out. Ok, so I can’t always know the values but if I don’t, I just put the food into my phone notes until later; saves me forgetting what I’ve eaten! The only thing you must be careful about is the accuracy of some of the calorific values on MFP as not all products are entered from bar codes.
If you eat something regularly, say a breakfast, you can create it as a stored recipe so you don’t have to keep in-putting the same components every time. It’s great for all your day-to-day recipes too and I have to say, I’ve cut some out since I’ve been seeing how many calories they have.
My fitness pal is great if you’re eating mostly packaged convenience foods that already have the nutritional info on them. If you’re cooking most of your meals from scratch, using fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, grains and legumes, it’s a real pain having to research each food item to find out the calories. If I was eating the same things over and over again I can see that it would be helpful, but I have such an extensive repetoire of recipes, I rarely eat the same thing twice in a month.
The key to eating well is to eat fresh and in season and only eat until you are full. Know the difference between a serving and portion and watch the size of your portions. I have found a poster with graphics which show what a serving looks like (compared to a pack of cards, which we all know the size of) and how many servings per day are recommended. It’s far easier to look at this and see if I am on the right track than to try and count calories. If you’re interested, it’s here:
http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/sites/default/files/Serving-size_1.pdf
and there are lots of healthy ideas and recipes on the site too. Used in conjunction with this Fast Diet (5:2) you can learn to eat healthily and well.
I use my fitness pal to log my calories every day. I’ve never used the scanning thing as fresh veg from the farm shop doesn’t have bar codes. I don’t use packaged foods or ready meals but I have, over the months, put a huge collection of my own recipes in the database so I can easily add them to my daily food diary. From the point of view of keeping track of calories it’s a great tool and easy to use with a huge database of foods.
BUT….
It throws a wobbly on fast days and if it could, it would shout at you ‘YOU ARE EATING TOO FEW CALORIES – YOU WILL PUT YOUR BODY INTO STARVATION MODE’ …really? And you want me to believe this?
And don’t even LOOK at the forums – whatever you say you are doing there will be dozens of posts telling you that you are doing it all wrong and you MUST do it another way …you will get dozens of ‘other ways’!
Used as a way of recording calories and keeping track, it’s great and I’ll keep using it.
Another advocate for myfitnesspal.com here. I use it on both fasting and non-fasting days to keep myself in check. It’s helped me to make much better food choices – once you’re confronted with the information in black and white it’s a lot more difficult to ignore.
I know not everything is on there, but it’s the best thing for me.
There’s also a section where you can record weight/measurements and it charts your progress too 🙂
My Fitness Pal has been great for me too. Lost eight Kg since May, slowly. Just started IF last week and it continues to be useful. The main drawback is the variations (inaccuracies) in the calorie database. I’ve used Alan Borushek’s calorie counter (local to Australia) to verify food quantities and calorie values. Many of the entries are not quantified. A slice of something tells me nothing. I really like being able to add exercise into the mix as it allows me to negotiate my food intake.
when you are adding food, a little picture of barcode should appear in the bottom right, press that and it clicks onto a camera view and you have to hold the barcode infront of it steady – it takes a few seconds to focus – the voila – the food is added!!!
I use this too and am a strong advocate – how do folks on here use it on non fast days? Since we’re supposed to be eating our daily allowance, do you set you goal to maintain weight? Otherwise it prompts you to try and aim below your calorie expenditure as if you were calorie cutting every day. The fact it automatically sets your target based on a goal could be confusing.
I use myfitness pal too. I just set the daily limit to my TDEE and ignore the silly warnings on fast days. As long as I can see the total for the day, whatever. What I love is that it has almost every single food in the system – even Aldi stuff! I used to use calorieking on my computer to log calories, but so often things wouldn’t be on there. I also love that so many of the foods have 1g measurements and I weigh everything I eat on a set of little electronic scales, so it’s really accurate. Yay!
I used myfitnesspal on its own a few months ago and found it over estimated its predicted results and I didn’t lose anywhere near what it said I would. I started 5:2 5 days ago and would say it’s a useful app when used in conjunction with another weight loss strategy such as 5:2.
The truth will be revealed when I weigh myself at the end of my first seven days.
When I first opened it there was an option to set different calorie goals for different days.
But it didn’t respond.
Haven’t seen it since.
It also has my weight goal as 18 kg lower than what I put in and won’t change it, rendering it pretty pointless.
“Someone” should make one – or these folks should adapt this one – with the option of logging fast days only or fast and normal days.
Hi kond:
From a scientific standpoint, the recommended amount of added sugar in your diet is 0 (not natural sugars in fruit, etc.). The U.S. Government in its new dietary guidelines, lowered the ‘recommended’ amount of added sugar in the daily diet to 200 cal. worth (50g) on average. Bottom line, I would never base my diet on one recommended by an ‘app’. Your exercise is irrelevant to your sugar intake.
Here are some tips on 5:2: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/
Good Luck!
Myfitness pal is still great if you rarely eat convenience foods like me. Most of the stuff I eat all the time is near the top of the recent list of food like tomatoes, chicken carrots, rice etc etc. Anything you don’t eat very often is just further down or on a later page. I’ve used it in the past for ‘normal’ calorie control and just started using it again for fast days and non-fast days. It doesn’t take many minutes to enter a meal, even if it’s something you’ve never bought before. I even found a Muffin Break Panini and Wagamamas main course very easily on a recent eating out day. The ads are an absolute pain though and slow it right down so I’m using it via Firefox rather than Internet Explorer at the moment as you can block ALL the ads
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