Sunday, July 15, 2012

About My Fitness Pal

You can download MFP for your Android, I-Anything, or just use it straight from the website.  Its free and takes all of 2 mins to sign up.  Once you sign up you need to fill out some stuff about yourself to get started.  Age/sex/activity level/how much you want to lose (I'm sure there's more).  How much you can lose ranges from .5 to 2 lbs.  When I signed up I was 340 lbs, desk job (sorta), and put I wanted to lose 2 lbs per week.  That started me out at 2250 calories a day.  It also ask how much exercise do you plan to do.  Whats nice about MFP is that when you go out and burn off 400 calories, you can eat some or all of them back and still stay within your goal range.  Since your 2250 is setup for 2lbs, that 400 calories was just an extra bonus.  I tend to eat no more then 50% of my calories back.  If you think about it, you go for a walk so you can eat more.  To me that is a win win situation!

Up to this point in my life I had no idea what a serving of anything was.  A serving of Pringles was the can and however many pretzel rods I could fit in my hand worked to.  I don't remember on the first day if I just ate normal or accidentally went over by 421 calories.  Either or it was a HUGE learning curve for me.  The first month of MFP you will either have to manually enter your food in or use the barcode scanner,  We shop at Kroger's mainly and there hasn't been much that's not in MFP database.  If its not in there, just find something similar.  There is a local pizza place we love that serves food just like a chain joint.  I asked the owner about nutritional info but she said they just never got around to doing it.  Just find a similar food till you can really narrow down what your eating.  After a few weeks to a month you will notice you tend to eat the same things often.  Those things will be in your quick menu in order of your choice.  Very handy since I only snack on a few things mainly and eat the hell out of Subway.  Need help with MFP, just ask or visit the sites own forum that is very active.  Its great for ideas on food, exercise, and if the person who post above you is hot or not.

1 comment:

  1. LOL. Those posts about whether the above poster is hot or not always give me a laugh when I see them pop up on my sidebar.

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