Dieting apps. Anyone use 'em?
 

I just started using MyFitnessPal. It consists of a website with a diet/weight/exercise tracking tool, a forum, and smartphone apps for all the major platform.

I tried it when I first got my phone, but had trouble getting it set up. I finally tried going to the website with a regular computer and it all came together. You basically answer a bunch of questions about where you are and where you wanna go (with respect to fitness and weight and stuff), then it sets a calorie budget and (here's the cool part) you can enter food you eat by scanning the barcodes on the packaging. It knows what the barcodes map to, including nutritional data. You just confirm number of servings and BANG, the food you eat is tracked. Pretty cool. The database it uses seems to be a hybrid between a database from the food industry plus users can enter in their own food combinations and calorie counts for them. Besides the barcodes, you can also do text searches of the database for foods that are the same or similar to what you eat (so, for instance, I found a roast beef on rye with muenster, which is close enough the roast beef on rye with provalone that I had for lunch).

On the exercise side, you can enter in activities (for instance, cycling at X speed, with lots of ranges of speed), and tell it how long you did it, and it increases your calorie budget accordingly. So on the days I ride, I can eat a little more.

This has been my problem is that I haven't effectively managed how much I eat relative to how much I ride. After using this app for a day or two, it looks like this will be a pretty good tool for controlling my intake relative to exercise.

Does anyone use this or similar apps? What are your experiences?

MFP is a great app. I looked at it, but I was primarily interested in tracking carbs when I started, so I went with CarbsControl. 140 lbs later, I can recommend the approach wholeheartedly.

There are several apps out there that essentially do the same thing, including some that have a UPC scaner to scan canned foods for nutrition info. But the key is to simply pick one and be religious about logging everything that goes in your mouth. It's amazing how much easier it is to have some will power when you see the numbers in black and white.

Hang in there!

BB

I've lost 40 lbs since late April with help from MyFitnessPal. It really helps me get a handle on consuming the right number of calories per day and limiting sugar intake on non-exercise days.
For me, it's a lot of value for a free app. BTW, inputting via your phone is probably the hardest way to do it. You can use it on any computer or tablet with less aggravation.

For me, doing it on the phone was what made it work. I always have my phone with me, so it was easy to log foods when I was eating out or having a snack on the run.

I've used myfitnesspal extensively and it has been a key tool in helping me lose 60 pounds. I particularly like the barcode scanner function, which makes it easy to enter food info by just scanning the bar code. I also use fitbit for tracking calories expended.

I did it successfully years ago with a little note pad and a calories book I picked up at the checkout lane of the local supermarket. The phone apps make it a little easier.

Yes, MFP is fantastic. I dropped almost 80lbs from July12 to Jan13 with the help of the MFP app.

Note that the math behind calories is just ONE element of diet success, the other is moderate exercise. Since you're on a bike forum I assume you have that covered. :) For me the trick was pretty simple:

1. Run a ~400-600cal deficit for the target TDEE for my target BMI
2. Cut out a few things that ruin your progress. For me it was fast food (which I was eating 3-5 days a week for lunch)
3. Stay active. Instead of fast food for lunch, I'd eat a salad or something light then walk 2-4 miles on my lunch break every day, rain or shine.

I think #3 is what really helped the lbs come off.

I've been maintaining my weight now for 8 months and still count every calorie and track all my fitness activities. It's become a habit that I don't want to break, it keeps me in check and it adds a bit of a "reward" feeling for my cycling (which I only started in February). There is something awesome about going out for a 3 hour ride and coming back and adding ~1500 calories to my daily intake allowance! :)

I use MFP (linked with Endomondo). I am down 50 lbs YTD.

I used Lose It! for a while. It was very similar to what you're describing.

In my experience, the hard part is not having an app, but actually bothering to log everything you eat. It's easy if you only eat prepackaged foods. It's worse if you eat anything that's not prepackaged, because you have to weigh everything. (If you want a PB sandwich, you weigh the bread, then you put peanut butter on it, then you weigh it again, then you write down / input everything into the app.) It's worst if you try to cook at home, because then you have to go into full calculations figuring out calories in all the ingredients, weighing the final product, etc. Huge hassle. And you can't drink alcohol at all because no one knows how many calories you have in there. (You can make educated guesses - one bottle of domestic swill like Budweiser is 100, Hefe or IPA could be 150, higher ABV craft beer could go over 200), but it's very approximate. Compared to that, it does not really make much difference whether I use an app or a pen and paper. I don't mind spending 5-10 minutes in the evening once every few days tabulating calories.

FWIW, I notice that Map My Ride also has a food logger. Had I discovered that when I first started, that would be pretty attractive.

BB

I had been using "MyNetDiary" and liking it -- it has pretty much all the features that others have mentioned.


I think what happens is that the actual app is not as important as simply tracking your calories. That is, I find myself cutting back portions and eliminating snacks as soon as I know that I have "turn myself in" and "Confess" to my IPhone -- the little nutrition Nazi.

Actually, I get a similar effect from "Strava" -- when I am debating whether or not I'm "too busy" for ride, I remember that a hole will show up on my Strava training calendar if I don't ride. Plus, when I look at the calendar and don't see any holes, I feel kind of proud of myself -- and that encourages me ride again the next day.

But, my current 'favorite' app is "Digifit" where I have been tracking my rides and heart rate. Strava and Digifit overlap but Strava is better at tracking the ride while Digifit is better at the heart rate and overall health side of things -- I use both .

But, the reason I bring that up is that Digifit lists "MyFitnessPal" as a health partner -- which means that it can share information with that app. In the case of Strava (until Strava cut them off) I could track my ride in Digifit and then send the information to Strava where it automatically was updated.

I like the idea of being able to integrate all my health and fitness information such as: calories burned vs consumed, blood pressure, resting heart rate, exercise heart rates, miles ridden (by bike), nutrition, sleep, weight, etc. because it all works together...

Totally agree. In just a little over a week, I'm down 7 pounds. I'm 3 pounds lighter today than I was yesterday; I expect some of that is water weight that I'll put back on after a particularly grueling (for me) ride last night. MyFitnessPal said I could eat another 2000 calories, but I barely went over my basic calorie budget.

The maintenance bit is where I have problems. I lost 70 lb. in 2005 and gained most of it back. I lost 30 lb. last year and fell off the program before reaching my goal weight. Both times I was using South Beach Diet and it works great, but it seems like if I fell off or slacked, the weight came back on.

I still have a SBD mentality in terms of awareness of carbs, but with MFP I don't sweat the carbs so much as long as my overall calories are in line. I envisioned staying with MFP after I met my goal weight; it's good to know it works for maintenance, too.

That, to me, is the huge advantage of MyFitnessPal: They have a food database that covers virtually anything with a barcode (even the stuffed mushroom caps prepared at the store have a barcode that's in the database), plus it has a text-searchable database. So I put in "roast beef rye" for my roast beef sandwich on rye with provolone. It returned a roast beef sandwich on rye with muenster. Close enough. And beers are in there too, even craft brewers like Real, Rahr and Boulevard. If it's not in there, you can add it (and others can use your entry, which is what makes the database so good). You can also build "recipes", so when you figure out what's in your PB&J, you can save it to the database and just grab the "recipe" next time.

Are there inaccuracies? Sure. But I'm happy with +/-10%.

This. Also there's a tangible benefit for *not* eating- either you see that you're under your calorie budget, or you get an extra snack at the end of the day. For me, I kind of like seeing that I left 400 calories on the table.

I'm using Fitbit and am loving it. It physically monitors your activity and you can also log in food and exercise. One thing though: I wouldn't trust the calories any of these apps grant for activities. They, like the estimate on Garmin units, seem way over bloated.

I am using MFP, and it works great! Note my user name is listed in my signature.

MFP works great for me. I lost about 20 kgs and stagnated. Started MFP, and lost a further 7 kgs.

Ive tried those apps before. But i have learned my body well enough to know exactly how much I should eat based on what I do that day. I don't even count calories or eat salads and such.

I still eat what I like, I know mornings is when my body can run on less food, lunch is a little bigger and dinner I eat til I feel just a bit too full so hours after dinner I feel very satisfied.

But I also ride my bike 60-80 miles a week. usually right after dinner.

Im 5' 8 and weighed 207 pounds in April, today im 173 pounds. I drop 1-2 pounds per week like clock work. the great thing is i love riding and i dont get hungry and my fat is melting away. Just learn your own body and you wont need apps.

Forgot to say mention everyone knows when they have ate something they shouldn't have. desert after a meal is guilty pleasure and it's just throwing a speed pump in your work.

Before you eat your snack or big breakfast just ask yourself if you really need that, are you really hungry? are you going to sit around after that big breakfast or go burn it off? eat lighter on off days and eat more on active days. human bodies don't need a lot of fuel to sit around in the A/C and watch tv or run errands.

I rode 23 miles this morning and burned 977 calories. So my breakfast was larger than normal. If i had ate my usual small breakfast my stomach would still be starving and i'd be tired and weak by noon because I know my body. Monday is my off day cause Ive been riding hard the last 4 days. My body is going to recover while I feed it and im still going to lose 1 pound by next Sunday.

That's great if that works for you, but if it was that easy for everyone, there wouldn't be any overweight people. I know I gained and lost the same 20-30 lbs for a good 20 years before I started using a tracking app and lost the weight I needed to lose.

I think of tracking apps as performing the same function that Quickbooks does for my money. Sure, I keep a running total in my head of what I spend and make, but that running total will never be as accurate and reliable as a record kept in black and white.

BB

Sounds high. How did you come to that figure?

+1

In addition: At 63, I think of exercise and nutrition as banking 'cardiac reserve' and 'cognitive reserve' the same as I banked money into a 401K. I am trying to build my mental and physical reserves the same as I built my financial reserves. If a physician told me I was going to be dead by the end of the week I would be OK with that -- but if he told me I was going to slowly slide further and further down into mental and physical disability, I would be terrified. So, just as I built my financial reserves while I was at the peek of my earning power, I am trying to build my mental and physical reserves while I am still able...

Fitness and Diet Apps help me to do that...

(BTW, by cognitive reserves, I am talking about increasing the blood (i.e., oxygen & nutrients) flow to the brain. Just like any other organ of the body, if it doesn't get the fuel that it needs, it starts to die -- like a car running out of gas)

didnt read all the posts so apologize if it's been covered.

4th of july I started fitnesspal at 5'11.5" and 250 lb's on the nose.
Two weeks in I downloaded and installed runkeeper as a fitness app that's integrated with fitnesspal and after a workout/activity it automatically puts it into your calorie content.(adds X number of calories due to workout) After a few weeks of walking using the gps of runkeeper I decided to buy my bike. Runkeeper has a cycling mode as well so I kept at it. I'm now a bit over 2 months into my new lifestyle and I'm at 229lbs but also have changed my shape considerably. I've moved some of my weight from my spare tire and put it into leg muscles. I also have MUCH better cardio endurance and can't wait for more.

If your considering the app I recommend both. I have the free version of both and see no need to pay for premium.