My Fitness Pal: Breakdown and a Peek into my Daily Food Log
Planning for the week ahead I was trying to think of something practical I could write about that everyone could use. I get a lot of questions on the best way to log and track foods, so I thought i’d do my best to break it down here and hopefully clear any questions up! Feel free to comment below with any questions or with anything tricks you may have found make things easier!
We encourage our clients to use My Fitness Pal App to track their food. There are other apps out there that work just fine but we have found MFP to have the largest data base of food and have the best accuracy when it comes to nutrition facts. Keep in mind no app is perfect, so always double check your entries!
When initially signing up for MFP, we recommend downloading the premium version. This is $10/mnth or $50/year. This will allow you to set your macronutrient goals specifically down to the gram, if you don’t have premium it will only let you set it by percentages, which can end up setting your numbers off. Premium version also allows you to set different sets of numbers on different days, which is great for those of you who have several sets of numbers. This keeps you on track and leaves less room for error.
When setting your numbers you will want to go to GOALS=> CALORIE AND MACRONUTRIENT GOALS=>Set your Default Goal (I usually use workout day numbers for this for those of you with more then one set of numbers!)
Once you have your personal Macros set, you can start tracking your food and easily know how many macros you have used up and how many you have left. If you go to DIARY=>Scroll to the bottom to NUTRITION=> you can check your macros there to make sure you stay on track. Make sure you are looking under “Nutrients” so you can see you progress in grams, not by percentages.
Adding your food in at each meal, you will need to pick the best selection in MFP or if there is a barcode to scan, you can scan in the package. Any food in MFP that is Green Checked is the best option. These are certified and the nutrition facts are usually the most reliable.
After you select your food, you must adjust the serving size accordingly. For example: You can select Egg Whites where 1 serving=46grams. If you want 3 servings you can adjust serving size to 3. This can be done with ounces, grams, Tbs, etc. You can always adjust serving size or number of servings to make it fit what you need.
Once you log a food once, it will be saved into your frequent Foods and easy to access for the next time! The more you log the quicker and easier it will be over time!
This is an example of my day completed and how close we want you to hit your numbers! It can be done and the sooner you create the habit of hitting those targets on point, the sooner you will see progress. It can seem daunting at first to weigh out all your food and hit your numbers that precisely, but once you do it consistently it will become second nature!
I’m currently on a bulk, so I am aware my sugar is high!! My numbers look like this DAILY. Always within a gram or two of my targets! When first starting to track, I always planned my day the night before, now I usually go through my day and just log as I go because it is easy for me to do now. If I ever want a special treat, I plan ahead for it and make sure I fit it in!
I hope you all find this helpful! Follow me on My Fitness Pal, username katyann53186. I will be going over how to create a recipe in a future blog!!
Have an awesome week, stay on track and always feel free to email Mallory or I with any further questions at personal emails or info.flexfuellife@gmail.com
Katy
