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I found My Fitness Pal by sheer luck. An online friend mentioned it, apparently it was pretty popular, but I’d never heard of it. That and help from the world’s best dietitian, and my life’s been changed for the better.
My Fitness Pal is one of many apps where you can track your food, calories, water intake, recipes, exercise and more, all designed to help you develop a better way of eating, or even to see just how much you do eat – if you log those cookies 🙂
There’s both a free and paid version, I did some beta testing for the premium when they were tweaking it and rolling it out and while there are some parts that I like, I’m good with the free version.
how to begin
Log on to the site to make a profile. You can set your calories and macros (carbs, fat, protein) or let them do it for you based on the measurements you provide.
To begin logging, you can search the database for a food, or a restaurant meal. If you’re eating something that has a barcode on the label, you can scan it and it fills in all the boxes for you. I’m not a big cook, but you can also create a recipe, add all the ingredients, the portion size, name it and it will save it.
Once you start logging foods, the system saves them, so if you eat the same food, again, all you have to do is click the box. This is a great shortcut if you’re like me, and eat the same breakfast or lunch. Or just repeat a lot of the same meals.
For the exercise part of the log, you can search a bunch of different ones, or even add your own. I like to record the calories I burn, some people will eat those back, I choose not to.
Community support
There is a huge community forum, there are categories for beginners, for people trying to gain weight, maintain their weight, success stories, food/nutrition, fitness/exercise and more. There are also a lot of groups you can join, shared interests, ages, locations, hobbies, fitness to name a few. I’ve learned so much on those forums over the years and found so much support from others. You can add people as friends and be able to support them and receive support from them.
My Fitness Pal is an invaluable tool. I highly recommend using it. If you do, feel free to add me as a friend. kar328
I did a similar post on this back in July 2018. I was on day 2018 of daily food logging. Today is day 3005.
So, why use My Fitness Pal? It’s an incredible resource for weight loss, learning about healthy eating habits, exercise, portions, calories, macros and how to sustain these habits for the long term.
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