From how to set your goals in MFP to my top tips to avoid overwhelm, this article contains pretty much (I’m sure I’ll continue to add to it) everything you need to know about tracking your calories in MFP.
How do I set my targets?
To set your calorie and protein targets, first go to more > goals > nutrition goals. Enter the calorie target that you have been set, if you have been given a calorie range, e.g. 1600-1800, choose the middle of the range, 1700.
Underneath you will see the three macronutrients, in most cases you will have only been given a protein target to hit. You will need to set the protein percentage at a figure that equates the gram amount to as close to your target as possible. Note that you will likely need to have a little bit of a play around with all three percentage figures to equal 100% and you may not be able to get the gram amount exact, that’s ok.
The gram amounts for carbohydrates and fats don’t matter as you likely won’t have targets for them, they can come down to personal preference. Finally, you don’t need MyFitnessPal premium, so please don’t be tempted to pay for that.
What about exercise?
The next thing you want to do is make sure that MFP is not tracking your steps or exercise and subsequently adding back the calories burned to your daily calorie allowance. This is a really common mistake when first starting to use MFP so please make sure to turn it off by going to more > steps > and selecting “Don’t track steps”.
How should I be tracking my food?
Tracking your food intake using MFP is going to give you a good idea of your intake, however it is never going to be 100% accurate. Tracking inaccuracies will typically come down to human error as well as under reporting, we know from the research that individuals tend to under report their intake by up to 35% in some cases. In addition, there are also some inaccuracies in the MFP database itself. The bottom line is that if MFP shows that you have tracked 1750 calories that day, it is likely that you have actually consumed more than that no matter how accurate you think you have been. In the big scheme of things, this doesn’t matter as long as you are consistent with using similar data entries and methods of weighing and tracking over time.
To start logging food in MFP, make sure the correct day is selected at the top of the screen and click “add food” underneath the correct meal. Here, you can either search for a food, scan a barcode of a food package or select from previously logged meals under “history”.
When is the correct time to use each option?
Generally you will use the search function for all non-packaged food items, e.g. fruits and vegetables. Try to be as specific as you can when searching, e.g. ‘red capsicum’ rather than just ‘capsicum’. You will see a lot of options show up that all show a variety of serving sizes and calorie amounts. Try to have a brief skim read of what comes up and choose one that is fairly consistent with the rest, for example, if 5 entries are stating that 100g is 40 calories but 1 entry is showing 100g is 22 calories; don’t pick that one. Once you have chosen one, you will likely need to edit the serving size and number of servings to match the amount that you have weighed out for yourself. Where possible, select 1g in the serving size and then adjust the number of servings. Then press the tick.
When tracking the same food or ingredient again, at a later date, try to search and select it from your history to avoid any major discrepancies between entries.
Use the ‘scan a barcode’ function to track any packaged foods. In some cases a food item may not exist within MFP, in which case you will need to search and track it as above. For most products though, the correct item will come up. Again, you will need to adjust the quantity and serving size based on what you have weighed out for yourself. Try to avoid using any suggestions such as; serving size: ‘1 medium chicken breast’ and instead change the serving size to grams and adjust the number of servings.
Again, providing you are buying the same packaged foods, search and select the food under ‘history’. Over time you will have a log of all previous foods tracked meaning that entries will stay somewhat consistent.
Do I need to weigh my food?
Yes, to give yourself the best possible chance of having an accurate food log, you will need to weigh out each individual ingredient. There are some exceptions though, for food products that are itemised like wheetbix or cereal bars, after scanning the barcode you should be able to select ‘3 biscuits’ or ‘1 bar’ rather than weighing its total weight.
There is no doubt about it, weighing your food can be a time consuming and laborious task. Luckily though, there are a couple of ‘hacks’ to make this less time consuming and less laborious, which I will go through below. It is worth noting though, that tracking your food intake in this way is not designed to be a long term solution. In my opinion, it should be used to educate and inform you before moving away from it completely, at that point it can be used as a reference point if you ever need to look up a certain food or check what an appropriate portion size might be. On a similar vein, tracking isn’t appropriate for everyone and should not be prescribed as a ‘one size fits all approach’.
How can I be efficient with my tracking?
There are a couple of ways you can track more efficiently and hence, spend less time faffing about with a scales at each meal time.
- Keep meals similar
Although food variety is important for health, keeping some meals similar day to day is a great way to reduce the onus of tracking. For example, you might keep your breakfast the same Monday to Friday and enter it ahead of time so that it is ready and waiting each day and you just have to stick to the quantities of the ingredients you have tracked. You could also create it as a saved meal by going to meals > create a meal and then naming it and listing the ingredients.
If you decide to take this similar meal approach just make sure you are rotating the meals on a weekly basis to avoid boredom and increase nutrient diversity.
2. Meal prepping
The reality is that no one who tracks their calories wants to be weighing and tracking every single mea on the spot. Not only is this boring and time consuming but you’ll be less accurate and thus less adherent. My advice to anyone tracking is to have at least one meal in your day pre prepared and pre tracked ahead of time. This could be using the method above by keeping one meal a day the same as the day before or it could be by meal prepping/batch cooking and creating a recipe.
To create a recipe, go to add food > my recipes > create a recipe. Title your recipe, e.g. Liv’s chicken curry (not including rice), decide how many servings it will be and then click the arrow. Add all of your ingredients for the whole recipe, including any sauces or oils. As you continue to add ingredients, the calories per serving will display along the bottom. If at any point you think the calories per serving are either too high or too low, you can click on it and adjust the number of servings. Once you’re done, click the arrow and press save. You will now be able to find that recipe in ‘my recipes’ and log it ahead of time for the week. Split your recipe into the number of servings that you have said it will make, try to make them as equal as possible but you don’t need to weigh your tupperware containers.
Finally, a few other quick tips that I find really helpful..
Overestimate
If you’re ever in a position where you don’t have access to a scales or you forgot to track an ingredient from earlier and you need to retrospectively track it, always overestimate.
Raw vs cooked
Always weigh and track the uncooked weight of foods such as pasta, rice or meat. You may need to search for ‘uncooked pasta’ when tracking it for the first time.
For reference;
100g uncooked pasta = 371 calories.
100g raw chicken breast = 138 calories.
Logging “calories”
If you’re a client of mine, you’ll know I advise not tracking social meals out. Not only is it inaccurate but it can also be pretty stress inducing so best to avoid. Instead, I prefer to use what I term the ‘calorie buffer method’ where you leave a chunk of calories “spare” to “spend” on your social meal. Again, this is best done ahead of time and you can do this easily by choosing the number of calories you wish to allocate to that social occasion and tracking them as just calories so that they appear in your diary for the day and you can work your other food around it.
