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MyFitnessPal carb counts

LooperCat

Expert
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Type of diabetes
Type 1
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It’s suddenly dawned on me, MyFitnessPal is an American site. So it adds fibre into the carb count - whereas British nutritional values are separated. So all the values it gives, we need to subtract the fibre from the carb value to get actual carbs. So for the last two months I’ve been having even fewer carbs that I thought.

This page (https://www.ruled.me/keto-calculator/) helps you determine the amount of each macro for your own circumstances. For me it says 20g net carbs or less, which I’ve been doing, it seems. I’ve set MyFitnessPal to 40g which seems to roughly cover it. Anyway, just take off the fibre value from the total carbs to get the actual carbs. Looks like I can eat more! I twigged when a Diet Doctor recipe for keto nan bread said it was 1g per serving, and when I put the recipe into MyFitnessPal, it said 7g!

Feel a bit thick now, but I hope this post might help someone else
 
We live and learn.
 

It isn't all American. Many of the users are from the UK and Europe, and they will enter the net carbs that we are used to seeing. You just need to be careful and decide if the entry is from a US user or not. It is one reason why I don't use it. The other reasons are because many of the entries are incorrect and careless, and many (most) don't enter any vitamins/minerals, and if they do and are American they use different measurement units. I much prefer a mixture of the Tesco/Sainsbury websites and Carbs & Cals.
 
Are you sure about this? I know there's lots of glaring errors in MFP which I'm forever correcting but I enter and use the carb value as if it was net and enter the fibre value separately. I suppose the items most at risk of this are generic items like vegetables where I tend to steer towards something like the Tesco entries for.
 
I’m very new to keto/LCHF so am on a very steep learning curve!

I did see some for obviously British products, like Lidl Oakland avocados, which had them separately. I’d been using the generic avo value for a bit, scoring it as 12g for a whole one. Then someone posted about avocados in another thread and I checked and changed it.

It was the generic values of veg like cauliflower and broccoli that flummoxed me a bit. But now I know what to look for, I think I’ll be a lot more accurate with my counting. I’ll just double check if something looks a bit off. Going back through my diaries, it looks like I’ve been on way less than 20g a day, when I thought I was nearer 40. No wonder I’m weeing ketones for Wales!
 
When entering a new food I’ve have never used previously in MyFitnessPal I usually enter the weight as 100 grams then check the listed values against the food label then adjust the weight to correct value.

The reason for doing this is to ensure the values were entered correctly and because different countries can have different ingredients and as you say different ways to list carbs.


I think the 6.5 million records are a mixture of these values as listed on the packet.

One of the most obscure things I measured with MyFitnessPal was listed in a pre metric German unit called a Becher (Germany went metric about 1870)

MyFitnessPal has a forum website if you need to ask more detail.
 

Vegetables and fruit are difficult as values are different depending where they are grown. I find the Tesco website very good. A ready to eat avocado at Tesco is 1.9g carbs per 100g.
 

I always find things like cauliflower and broccoli are best using your own input as many different shop brands have completely different values, I suppose that depends on the variety used.

Cauliflower examples per 100g
Sainsbury’s fresh comes in around 4g
Lidl fresh is around 3g
Coop frozen 3g
Iceland own frozen 1.1g same as broccoli (which is super low so not too sure)

They aren’t big differences but when totting up your totals and calculating insulin it is.
 
Last edited:
I’ve barely needed to inject any insulin with food since starting this, as I’m using a fair bit of fat which stops the spikes, but I’ll certainly be checking more in future. Thanks so much for all your advice and input, hive mind!
 
If there's a little green check mark beside the entry, the values have been confirmed by MFP, and yes, it will be American and you need to deduct fibre from carb count. So try to use those if you can.
 
LouWilk059 said:
If there's a little green check mark beside the entry, the values have been confirmed by MFP,
Click to expand...
not necessarily, I have found. sometimes it says 'member submitted, 2 confirmations' or similar, meaning that it is being confirmed by other members who may, or may not be in the UK
 
LouWilk059 said:
If there's a little green check mark beside the entry, the values have been confirmed by MFP, and yes, it will be American and you need to deduct fibre from carb count. So try to use those if you can.
Click to expand...

The idea for carb counters is to make sure the fibre is not included in the total carbs. We need net carbs, not carbs including fibre. This is why we avoid the American entries and nutrition guides as far as we can.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
The idea for carb counters is to make sure the fibre is not included in the total carbs. We need net carbs, not carbs including fibre. This is why we avoid the American entries and nutrition guides as far as we can.
Click to expand...
It's a simple substraction, carbs minus fibre equals net carbs.
 
LouWilk059 said:
If there's a little green check mark beside the entry, the values have been confirmed by MFP, and yes, it will be American and you need to deduct fibre from carb count. So try to use those if you can.
Click to expand...
That's not right or there wouldn't be green ticks next to products sold in UK Supermarkets. Even if the green tick is there it usually isn't correct data anyway.
 
LouWilk059 said:
It's a simple substraction, carbs minus fibre equals net carbs.
Click to expand...

I appreciate that. However, with MFP it is not always clear if the subtraction has already been done, either by the person entering the data if they happen to be American, or by the manufacturer if it happens to be a UK/European labelled product. Some of the American users do subtract themselves, whilst others don't. This is where misunderstandings occur, particularly when most of the users are only interested in calories because it is essentially a weight loss programme, not a low carb/diabetes programme.
 
I think I’ll take a bit of time and enter the things I use regularly into the “my foods” section.
 
I do understand how frustrating it is for you guys. I found this on MFP, not sure if it will help.

"...maybe need to set time , settings...is there a country setting that can be changed ??

Jan 06, 2016 05:11PM PST

Thanks for posting your follow up question. While you can designate a country and postal code by editing your profile, there is also a time zone setting. In the app it will be found in the Profile section, while on the website, it will be it’s own line item under Settings.

Warm Regards,
Logan
MyFitnessPal Staff"
 
Makes me very glad I just use my spreadsheet and UK supermarket websites for the nutritional info.
 
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