Food/Exercise Tracking

LOL! To each his own right? I love interesting debates and good reasons for why or why not. Some people just get their panties in a bunch for no reason. Sensitive people!!! Jeesh lol ;)

I use MFP for the food diary and database. Anything I've eaten is already in there, and it is very convenient and easy to use. I have almost 1800 consecutive days.

I ignore the goals, percentages, estimated weight loss, etc. I don't log exercise or activity, and never, ever eat calories back from burning more.

From the beginning, I know what I wanted my daily calorie limit to be. If I go over, I know how much I want to cut back on subsequent days. I ignore pretty much everything else -- most of what I eat is protein, so none of those other numbers matter.

It's the best free thing ever. If they started charging, I would pay them in a heartbeat.

GRIM - To be honest, YOU are the reason I use MFP

Oh COME ON Grim!?!?! You DON"T eat back the calories!?!?! You're joking right.... oops sorry NOT a JOKE yikes lol I might get my head ripped off by someone else for using that euphemism

somewhere on here, someone said they use the premium version and it does allow for more changing of the goals....

I am with you, Grim. So glad a Vet like you skips over some of the same stuff I do!

Calorie King and MFP have way too much inaccurate nutritional information for my taste. I use LoseIt.

Well, in theory the more you exercise the more you can eat because you don't want to create a huge calorie deficit and you need to fuel your workouts. So that isn't a bad feature or a joke. That doesn't apply to everyone though, especially some weight loss patients. I definitely have to up my calories on super active days. Dizzy spells are not fun.

I don't track my exercise in any app beside Samsung Health and it just auto tracks because of my watch. I don't track my exercise with my food because I don't want anything trying to calculator my calories for me. I set my calories and macros very specifically for the way I eat. I don't exercise for weight loss, I exercise for general fitness. And in spite of the marketing and what all the apps tell people, they are all inaccurate, I don't use that stuff for anything. It is cute to look at and that is about it.

Also almost no one really should be or can lose more than 2 pounds a week. That is a lot of weight for a person that did not have WLS surgery. Apps really shouldn't be encouraging people to set goals at more than that because it is not obtainable. Also as most WLS patients end up learning, it is not sustainable to an extended period of time. As you lose more weight and have less excess weight to lose, your weight loss slows down.

LoseIt? I will try that one too, thanks! I didn't like the Samsung apps cause they asked for privileges to track my messages and phone calls and stuff. And yes in theory that applies to most people who shouldn't really have the need to be on THIS site. Some of you lucky ones have already reached their goal and can afford to eat back cals and maybe sneak a treat. But most of us on this SITE have more than 2#/week to lose. So yes maybe MFP isn't geared towards the bariatric clientele but since we just so happen to be on a site for bariatrics lol....

anyway, why are you getting dizzy? that sounds horrible. I used to have vertigo pretty bad and it's terrible! I feel for you. Is it too much malabsorption or whatever?

I have 200 pounds to lose basically, and my Dr still expected me to lose it mostly at a rate of 2 pounds a week. If you lose 2 pounds a week for a year, that is 104 pounds, nothing to sneeze at, 2 pounds a week is fast, and about right with stalls and then some fast pound dumps.

Most people don't lose 5 to 10 pounds every week. I think people expecting that all the time creates a lot of disappointment for them.

I think it better mentally to set average to low goals and blow them out the water than to set lofty goals and not meet them. Weight loss is mostly a mental game, you can't stress yourself too much.

I like Lose it because even though it has some bad user entered information, it also has verified information with the green checks so you know what is accurate, it is really easy to create recipes for tracking. Premium is $29.99 a year on sale and 39.99 a year normally, you can usually catch a sale price, so it is a lot cheaper then MFP. The community is great, I love the challenges and the forums. My BFF uses LoseIt with me and even though she is not a WLS patient she lost 40 pounds just by tracking her food.

Nothing is geared towards WLS patients except the apps designed for WLS patients, and I hate all of them. My program has an app and I don't use it. You can set your macros and your goals on any app though. I used to like that it reminded me I wasn't eating enough calories even though I was for a WLS patient because I needed to be mindful of what I was doing. The same reason why I also ate off my regular plates and used my regular utensils. I wanted to be mindful that I was eating smaller portions, and now it has helped me better gauge what I should be eating when I am some place I can't weigh my food.

Last summer I was walking 10 miles a day. I could not support that kind of activity on my 1200 calories or whatever I was eating. I had to increase my calories.

I'm lucky or not so lucky in that I have a normal to high metabolism and a lot of muscle. My RMR is 1900-1990 (I work with a University sports medicine team on my fitness goals) and I usually burn another 500 on top of it just with my regular daily life, not even on my high activity days. I can't live on 1200 calories. I've had too many dizzy spells.

I gave up all meat for Lent, which was really dumb. My calories tanked and I started eating protein bars, which I normally avoid (Franken foods). I posted some of the symptoms I was having on another forum and someone suggested reactive hypoglycemia. Talked to the dr about it and then did some digging on my fav protein bars and found out they had more sugar than on the label and they were crashing me out.

I got that figured out in the past couple months but yeah, I can't live on war rations. I need at least 1500 calories a day or things get dicey for me. And that can really hard to do some days. I don't usually get hungry so it is easy to go like 18 or 20 hours without eating some days. I still don't eat back my calories, I just add another serving of protein on a super active day.

I have already sold my soul to Samsung anyway. I have the watch and all the other stuff to go with my phone. I use Samsung Pay, they know everything about me. If you have the new versions of Android, you can limit hat apps have privileges to. If you don't have a watch though I don't see the point in using the apps. I only use it because I have a lot of gear devices

At some point you will have lost all or most of you excess weight and you will be a normal regular person. Getting used to normal regular people fitness apps isn't a bad idea.

I would still rather apps not be tailored for super low calories and weight loss patients than enable the pro-anorexia types.

They have all those alerts and limitations for legal reasons. You have to think about all the young kids and the people on the other end of the eating disorder spectrum from us.

Good Luck you are super motivated so you should rock this right out the park.

Jeez, that's good and bad both I guess. It sounds like you have a whopper of a journey. I'm surprised that you were physically able to walk 10 miles, most people of our size couldn't do that. That's awesome though, I wish I could walk just a quarter of a mile lol

Thanks I am super motivated and fairly decent willpower, just not when someone tells me I can eat back all those cals I sweated off lol, no willpower there, I'll do it, lol my momma always taught me to listen.

Oh and yes if you already got samsung for everything, they probably know what color your panties are lol

I think the same thing about just using the regular size plates.

I walked a lot when I was really heavy. I was that "active fat person".

Last year I was down about 130 pounds by the time I was walking 10 miles. I was at the one year mark, so to me being 230 seemed really light weight compared to be 360. Now that I am under 200, I would never want to be 230 again. I'm so much lighter now.

I walked 2 miles a day minimum from the 6 week mark.

I guess I'm an avid walker now, that is really my primary and only consistent exercise.