PCOS/Insulin Resistance SupportSupport for us with any of the following: Insulin Resistance, Syndrome X, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, or other endocrine disorders.
Has anyone else used this to track caloric intake? I have tried cutting down for years. I don't believe in "dieting," I believe in lifestyle changes. They are hard to implement, but diets are temporary and if weight is not lost gradually, it often comes back (especially for those of us with PCOS!).
I have started using MyFitnessPal to log my calories each day. It helped me set a goal based on my lifestyle (rather sedentary with my desk job), so my goal is 1200 calories. I figure this is a bit low, but that way I won't hate myself if I go over. The 1200 calories is what the app calculated I could eat every day and lose about 2 lbs per week. I aim to lose 1-2 lbs per week, so this is perfect for me.
When I go to eat something, I can either search for it in their database, or the app has a built-in code scanner to scan the food, and it finds it instantly. It already knows the serving sizes and you enter how much you ate, and it calcualtes all the nutrition facts and adds it to your daily total.
You can also record exercises that count against your daily caloric intake. I often use cleaning as exercise, and the app even has several options for this and knows how many calories I burn while cleaning!
The app is also a social network, so you can have friends who can view your recipes, meals, and achievements.
Anyway, I know I sound like a salesperson, but this app has changed my life. I am finally able to easily track everything I eat, and it's working so well. I don't have a working scale right now, but I know I have lost weight just in the 2 weeks of using it. For someone with PCOS, that can be pretty drastic. I hope someone else finds it useful!
Hi Kitty!
I have been using this program for the past 2 months and I love it. I am also at 1200 calories daily for a 1 lb a week loss. I don't enter the foods every day but it sure helps me keep on track.
A feature I love is that you can enter a restaurant menu item and it'll give you the nutritional value of that item. It has helped me make better choices in that area also.
Being a Canadian I find it hard to find a program that has restaurants and items from grocery stores in our area. This program has them all. I can enter an item from my local store and know the values.
I have lost 8 lbs in the past 2 months so I'm almost on track. I need to enter my exercises in there also. Lots to learn!
This app also tracks your daily exercise and calories you burn for everything during the day (even sitting at your desk working). It also allows you to look up all kind of foods and even scan the barcode of packages to input information. One of the best features of this app is that it shows you what percentage of calories you have consumed for you RDI (recommended daily intake) to stay at the weight you are at currently, so you know if you only consume about 50% of your RDI, you will lose weight the next day. They also have a calendar feature that shows you if you had a negative caloric intake for the day (consumed more calories than you burned) or a positive (burned more calories than I consumed).
This gives me a lot of freedom in my choices. I know that if I burn anywhere from 1500-2500 more calories than I consume each day, I will lose weight. Started this on Monday and have been down a 1/2 pound to a pound a day.
Has anyone else used this to track caloric intake? I have tried cutting down for years. I don't believe in "dieting," I believe in lifestyle changes. They are hard to implement, but diets are temporary and if weight is not lost gradually, it often comes back (especially for those of us with PCOS!).
I have started using MyFitnessPal to log my calories each day. It helped me set a goal based on my lifestyle (rather sedentary with my desk job), so my goal is 1200 calories. I figure this is a bit low, but that way I won't hate myself if I go over. The 1200 calories is what the app calculated I could eat every day and lose about 2 lbs per week. I aim to lose 1-2 lbs per week, so this is perfect for me.
When I go to eat something, I can either search for it in their database, or the app has a built-in code scanner to scan the food, and it finds it instantly. It already knows the serving sizes and you enter how much you ate, and it calcualtes all the nutrition facts and adds it to your daily total.
You can also record exercises that count against your daily caloric intake. I often use cleaning as exercise, and the app even has several options for this and knows how many calories I burn while cleaning!
The app is also a social network, so you can have friends who can view your recipes, meals, and achievements.
Anyway, I know I sound like a salesperson, but this app has changed my life. I am finally able to easily track everything I eat, and it's working so well. I don't have a working scale right now, but I know I have lost weight just in the 2 weeks of using it. For someone with PCOS, that can be pretty drastic. I hope someone else finds it useful!
I don't have a smartphone, but Myfitnesspal is useful for tracking throughout the day. Unfortunately it doesn't have a lot of Japanese foods, but I can usually find things that are roughly equivalent and opt for whatever amounts to slightly more than what the food labels claim. It gets angry at me sometimes though because I'm just not hungry, so I eat my 1280 calories that it assigns me then do a few hours of exercise (my bike is my primary mode of transportation) and it tells me that I have too few...Eating more makes me feel ill, but the angry red letters make me sad...
This app also tracks your daily exercise and calories you burn for everything during the day (even sitting at your desk working). It also allows you to look up all kind of foods and even scan the barcode of packages to input information. One of the best features of this app is that it shows you what percentage of calories you have consumed for you RDI (recommended daily intake) to stay at the weight you are at currently, so you know if you only consume about 50% of your RDI, you will lose weight the next day. They also have a calendar feature that shows you if you had a negative caloric intake for the day (consumed more calories than you burned) or a positive (burned more calories than I consumed).
This gives me a lot of freedom in my choices. I know that if I burn anywhere from 1500-2500 more calories than I consume each day, I will lose weight. Started this on Monday and have been down a 1/2 pound to a pound a day.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with your method. It is unhealthy and unsustainable to lose that much weight so quickly. I know it's frustrating to want to lose weight quickly, but it is almost impossible to keep weight off if you lose more than a pound or two a week. Please consider taking it down a teensy little notch and I think you will feel better and be healthier in the long-run. Good luck!
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I love myfitnesspal as a tool for weightloss and tracking food and exercise. But I like the support and advice on here much much much better. Questions often take an ugly turn on that site. Fortunately you can have friends on there and just ask them questions instead of posting it on the forum and I do find that helpful. Anyone who wants to add me on there can feel free. My username on there is the same as here. CHUBBYGIRL253
I tried it for a while earlier this year when I started working out and trying to get serious about watching what I ate, unfortunately I found it annoying to try and find the stuff I wanted to eat. Then I realized that I was starting to obsess about it and resenting it and myself, so I uninstalled it. Maybe my head will be in a better place this fall and I will try it again. The NuvaRing seams to be helping, not like Yasmin, but the side effects from the generics were horrible, which may have had something to do with my inability to handle mfp this spring. I love my Droid, so I try not to use it for things that depress me or make me hostile.
I use My Net Diary for iPhone. It is very similar to MFP but gives me more of the interface I need. I love it.
I am a slow loser because I have very little weight to lose (although I once weighed more than 100 pounds from what I do now and am a maintainer of that for many years).
I have always lost slowly but disagree that it is wrong to lose quickly if that works for an individual. I don't think there is a onc size fits all, slow versus fat, once and for all answer.
That said, I don't agree with the net calorie theory in the modern apps like MFP, My Net Diary and Lose It. These apps all work in exactly the same way, calculating how many calories the app thinks you are burning from the info you input and adding it to your calorie budget, which is based on your resting metabolism rate and a formulaic questimate of how many calories you burn if you are sedentary or active or very active, etc. ... then it subtracts how many calories it thinks you need to burn to lose x, y, z amount of weight and then adds back in your reported exercise calories so you can eat A LOT if you pay too much attention to this "net calorie" figure.
That said, I love My Net Diary and seeing the exercise calories but I don't pay attention to or eat the exercise calories most of the time. I just like to SEE the exercise calories but I ignore them for the most part.
Last edited by Amarantha2; 08-11-2012 at 10:34 PM.
I love MFP! It's been a great help to me since I've really been using it as of late. It's so nice to be able to enter in my information where ever I go, right from the app.
Maybe my head will be in a better place this fall and I will try it again.
Okay, I just started the induction phase of Atkins and am paranoid about forgetting what I ate or forgetting to count the carbs of one part of it, so I am trying MyFitnessPal again. School starts next Monday so I will be putting it back on my Droid, hopefully I don't get more annoyed with it than with the process of keeping track of what goes in my mouth.
MyFitnessPal App for Android
MrsH2132012
