My Fitness Pal

[ChrisinNJ]

So I joined this board a few weeks ago and I asked about Myfitnesspal (MFP) versus Sparkpeople (SP). I signed up with Sparkpeople & have been using it, but many times I have to enter my own foods because they are not in the databank.

So yesterday I decided to sign up with myfitnesspal, but I have a question.

In signing up I put in my height & weight, my goal weight & goal to lose 2lbs per week. It gave me a goal calorie count, then gave me back the calories I burned exercising yesterday. The calorie counts it gave me were higher than what SP gave me, and SP doesn't add your burned calories back into your food allowance. (Honestly the goal calorie range that SP gave me was too low to me anyway & I raised it, and still lost 8lbs in 2 weeks.)

If you are following MFP, do you eat the calories you burn?

Are you losing at the rate you would like?

I know weight loss can stall if you don't eat enough calories (starvation mode) I just don't want to overeat & stop losing from that......

Thanks!!

 

[KellyNTink]

Hi Christine!

I have been using MyFitnessPal for almost 80 days now. I have found for me what works is eating about 80% of my exercise calories back. Lots of people eat 100% of their exercise calories back. Remember, that when you set up your profile on MFP you tell it your stats and how much you want to lose each week - so your base calories it gives you before exercise already has a deficit built into it to lose weight. When I tried not eating any of my exercise cals back I did lose fast at first, but then I sat at a plateau. When I eat 100% of mine back I don't lose 2 lbs a week. You may have to play with it a bit. Most people on MFP follow the eating 100% of exercise cals back. For me probably the other reason I don't eat 100% back is that I don't always know how accurate my cals burned estimates are.

I have been doing fitness bootcamps (in week one of my third one now - each one is 5 days a week, 1 hour a day). There are so many girls in my class that are building muscle but not really losing fat....they are not really watching their eating. Nutrition is 80% of the success factor! Since November, I have dropped 18 lbs (going from 160lbs to 142 lbs)...but most amazingly, my bodyfat% went from 38% to 24.5% (as of my assessment this past Monday). I attribute a big part of this to MFP!!! It's a GREAT tool!

Good luck in your journey!

 

[ChrisinNJ]

Since November, I have dropped 18 lbs (going from 160lbs to 142 lbs)...but most amazingly, my bodyfat% went from 38% to 24.5% (as of my assessment this past Monday).

That is Awesome!!! Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

[KellyNTink]

Oops

 

[Zoesmama03]

This is older and I missed seeing it somehow.

I switched to MFP for the exact same reasons.

I eat between 50 and 75% of my calories burned. I strive to be sure they are at least 1200 net calories. It becomes even more important when you get closer to goal but I have played with this a little. I do notice a bit better burn with SOME calories eaten back while eating them all didn't give me as big a loss(2lbs) as I put in. The portion of them I do has helped. Last week I did eat some completely, some non exercise days were over yet I lost 2 lbs.

I've also been playing with sodium since I saw a post from a gal that showed before and after with low sodium diet it was crazy how quick her tummy shrank. In like 6 days. Bloating and retention can really factor in our weight.

I've had a struggle mentally a bit because I seem to have 2 weeks of losses and then a gain week or two before having a couple more losses. I lost this way previously in Weight Watchers too(with little to no exercise). I think its because I am doing strength and cardio workouts and the composition underneath is changing. I know by inches that I'm doing good.