Take control of your diet with
Tim Bothwell offers insights into tracking what you’re eating with just a few taps.
While physical exercise is an important part of keeping fit and healthy, you’re unlikely to see serious results with a poor diet. Not only does what we eat play a huge role in weight loss (and weight gain), it can also impact on how we feel, with certain foods giving us more energy than others. While not necessarily something that needs to be done for the long-term, recording what you put in your mouth can help to improve your diet, especially if you find yourself struggling to make progress. MyFitnessPal is one of the most popular meal logging apps, helping you to keep track of carbohydrates, fat, sugar and calories consumed throughout the day. In this guide we’ll walk you through the steps to setting a goal, before showing you how to log and track meals overtime.
The basics
Getting started. To begin, download the MyFitnessPal app from the Apple or Google Play store. You can also visit www. myfitnesspal.com from a web browser. If you don’t already have an account, tap the sign up option and choose to register using either an email address or Facebook account. During registration you’ll be asked to pick a goal – either to lose, maintain or gain weight – along with specifying your current activity level. The app will also ask for your age, gender, height and weight. Once done, MyFitnessPal will calculate your daily net energy goal. This is the total number of calories that you’ll work to consume each day. Note that you can adjust your goal at any time by visiting the More tab and selecting Goals. To switch between calories and kilojoules, visit the More tab and select Settings >
Profile > Units.
MyFitnessPal is one of the most popular meal logging apps, helping you to keep track of carbohydrates, fat, sugar and calories consumed throughout the day.
Logging food. Now it’s time to log your first meal. To add food to your diary, tap the plus icon at the bottom of any screen and select Food. Alternatively from the Diary tab, select Add Food below breakfast, lunch or dinner. After choosing a meal time, you’ll be taken to a screen with a search bar which you can use to look for a particular food item.
MyFitnessPal has millions of products and ingredients coming from a huge range of brands. After entering your search term, tap an item to see its nutritional information. If you’re happy, add it to your diary by tapping the tick icon. Also handy is the built-in barcode scanner – located next to the search bar, you can use your smartphone’s camera to scan a product’s barcode, removing the need to search for it manually.
Checking in. Tracking your progress consistently over time will help ensure you stay motivated to achieving your goal. While not the only measure of progress, you can record your weight by tapping the plus icon
and selecting Weight. There’s also the option to add a photo – useful for seeing how your body is changing over time. On the Progress tab you can access a history of your results in graph format.
Step it up a level
Custom foods. For foods not in MyFitnessPal, you can add them yourself. From the search screen, tap the plus icon and select Create a Food. The app will ask for a brand name (if applicable), description and serving size, before taking you to a screen where you can add nutritional information.
Quick add. There may be some occasions where you don’t have time to go through and manually add food to your diary. If you know how many calories are in a meal, then you can log it quickly on the fly. Just tap the ellipses (three dot) icon below a meal time and select Quick Add. Note that while you can add calories, a premium subscription is required to also record carbohydrates, fat and protein.
Recipes. If there’s a recipe you cook regularly, then you can save its nutritional information to MyFitnessPal for easy tracking in the future. From the search screen, tap the plus icon and select Create a Recipe. If the recipe is from a website, MyFitnessPal can attempt to import and identify the ingredients automatically. Alternatively, you can add items manually using the search tool or barcode scanner. In addition to recipes, the app allows you to create meals made up of multiple food items.
Friends. Your desire to get fit and healthy doesn’t have to be private, in fact you can invite other users to be part of the journey. Doing so will mean your exercise, weight loss and other achievements will appear in their news feed, allowing them to cheer you on with likes and comments. Note that friends will never be able to see your current weight, and your food diary is private by default. To add friends, visit the More tab.
Going pro
Workout routines. Not limited to cardio, MyFitnessPal also lets you create workout routines where you can record weight, reps and sets for different exercises. To do this, visit the More tab and select Workout Routines. The app has a number of pre-made workouts, plus you can create your own.
Plans. In addition to logging meals, you can also sign up to one of a number of plans designed to help you achieve goals beyond just weight loss. After selecting a plan, you’ll be given daily tips, articles and tasks for you to complete. Accessed from the More tab, both MyFitnessPal 101 and Support
Your Immune System plans are free to all, while other plans require a premium subscription.
Premium. Readers looking for a more advanced tracking experience will want to consider MyFitnessPal Premium. Priced at $14.99 per month or $79.99 on an annual subscription, you get more detailed food analysis functionality, meal timestamps, CSV exporting, plus the ability to set custom calorie and macronutrient goals for different days of the week.
Other apps. While MyFitnessPal lets you log physical exercise manually, you can also automate the process by syncing a compatible fitness app such as Strava, RunKeeper or Fitbit. To set it up, visit the More tab and select Apps & Devices. In addition to apps, you can also sync your food diary with Apple Health or Google Fit.