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Myfitnesspal

KimG

Well-Known Member
Messages
549
Location
West Sussex
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hello

I would like some advice please regarding myfitnesspal. The app seems to want me to stick to 51 carbs a day with 2020 calories a day. I'm a little panic stricken as I have had olive oil for roasting, a bit of single cream, oil & vinegar dressing, cheese and some mayonnaise. I thought these were free. I'm over on calories and carbs on this app and feeling a bit frustrated.
 
What did you roast though??

You shouldn't be over on carbs on the foods you have listed...

Oil has a fair few calories and cheese etc but you can go into every food on MFP to see its breakdown....
 
Vegetables, peppers, courgette and red onion. I clearly need to learn more about the app and eat a lot less fat. I'm getting headaches a lot too. Not sure 50 carbs is enough.
 
It can have flu like symptoms initially.

Fat shouldn't be monitored excessively if you are eating gorgeous roasted vegetable meals like that. I would be the first one knocking on your door for tea!!

The thing is with the app to put in any exercise (even 30 mins cleaning or cooking) as it takes off those calories etc...

If I had ate that for a meal I certainly wouldn't be worried!

I have about 80ml of homemade olive oil dressing on my salads each day. That is a lot! My salads literally swim in it.

Don't worry too much about the fat aspect adding to the calories....so long as you can maintain less carbs.

I only eat fat from avocado, olives etc.. No cheese but I do have a lot of full fat milk.
 
I found with myfitnesspal you have to break down every part of the food to add it into the food list. I have a book called "Carbs and Cals" to help me do this though the book doesn't list the sugars. There are also some foods I can't find values for either.

Thanks for the info on exercise. I thought it was literally exercise lol. I do a lot of cleaning and cooking etc.
 
Hello @KimG . Are you using the search in my fitness pal to find the foods? I found that there were very few foods that it couldn't find and give values for.
 
Oops no lol. I'm still learning with this app. I've got the hang with the exercise. It's looking better
 
I must be dim I cannot find the search. I can't now get into my foods lol
 
To be honest, MFP is to be used with caution. All the nutrition data is added by other users, and many (most) of these are from America where they have different food labelling rules, and where some of their foodstuff is manufactured differently from the UK. Just as a silly example, Kellogg's Cornflakes in the UK have much less sugar added than the American version. I would stick to Carbs & Cals for your data, plus use websites like Tesco for items not in Carbs & Cals. The Tesco website lists all the nutrients for all the products it sells. Then simply enter your own foods in MFP with your own nutrition breakdown. Ignore sugars. They are not important. You only need to know carbs/calories/fibre/protein, plus any vitamins and minerals that interest you.

Set your own calories and carbs, and let it calculate how much fat you need to add. You can do this, you don't have to accept what calories/carbs they say you need.
 
Thanks for that Bluetit. I've only been putting in info from Carbs and Cals fortunately. I forgot about Tesco and Sainsbury. Thanks for that too!

The MFP percentages of carbs, calories, protein etc are moveable. I have 20% on Carbs, 35% on Protein and 45% on Fats allowing me to eat 1777 calories a day. I don't know what the correct percentages should be for diabetics.
 
That percentage sounds ok to me.. I don't OTT on low, low carbs.

I've been lower carbs for 90+% I reckon of my 50+ years of living. Didn't even realise I did it til I came to this forum.

I don't know of the sort of "carb flu" effects personally as I don't know any different really.

Its good to take some control.
My hubby lost 4 stone from suddenly waking up one morning and deciding he was going to eat like I do.

Today he has also worn my fitbit for the first time. Is is never to late to watch your foods and change. Hubby has now been 4 st lighter for more than 2 years.. Nearer to 3 I think!!

He has never looked so good even to when he was 20 years ago.....

You can get to grips with lower carbs... And higher fats..it takes time.

By the way... I'm the opposite I have to eat fat of olive oils and avocado, olives etc to keep weight on!!
 
Swap? I'd rather be in your shoes and put some on, seems a lot easier with all these fats lol
 
You'll get there. If my hubby did.. (And he is so interested in health now!) so can you.

You'll get there.. Hunby loves roast veggies with olive oil..thanks for prompting to do this for us this Sunday....
 
I use myfitnesspal, have it set to 1200 cal. If there are any of my own recipes that I want to work out the nutritional value of I use Spark recipe calculator http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp also using data from manufacturers label then transfer that data to Myfitnesspal, which gives a rough estimation of consumption and portion control.
A great book, The Worlds Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan list the nutritional values of vegetables, meats and fish. He also has this available on his website.
I've recently come off the 60 day Newcastle diet consuming only low carb 500 - 600 cal a day. Here are my totals for yesterday Cal 855. Carb 30. Fat 48. Protein 69. Sugar 20.

Now to find an app to annihilate a bout of insomnia!!
 
Thank you for that. I have made a note of both of these and will check them out today
 
www.phlaunt.com

As an alternative, This may also be a helpful site to use, to work out how much fat/protein to have with 50g carbs each day, and by how much weight you want to lose a week. I have mine set to lose one-half pound a week. I keep to this strictly Mon/Fri, but weekends I eat up to my maximum of around 1550 calories.
As I have around 10lb to lose, am afraid I have to count calories as well as carbs/fat/protein in order to lose this weight. I cannot seem to lose weight without counting, probably due to my age, height etc. I am losing about 2lb every six weeks or so.

MFP is designed for our American buddies. I always input 'Asda', 'Tesco', 'Waitrose' etc then put in pork loin, cheese, 5% or 10% beef mince etc, then check it against the label on packet. It took a while to work it out and when I have a meal that suits I add it the 'Meals' tab. I have quite a collection now!
 
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