How to Count Calories Using MyFitnessPal
Not counting calories is like going to the casinoâŚ
Youâre gambling with weight loss.Â
And is that really something you want to leave up to chance?
I donât think so.
You donât want to be stuck in the same position 6 months from nowâŚ
Not counting calories.
Not making any progress.
And not feeling too good about your weight loss future.
Basically, if youâre not counting calories (especially as a beginner), understand thatâs one of the biggest weight loss mistakes you can make.Â
Fortunately, thatâs not something youâll ever have to think about since weâll be walking through everything you could possibly ever want to know about counting calories.
Weâll talk about what it even is, why you should be doing it, and then how to count calories using MyFitnessPal.
Even if youâve been counting calories for a while now, Iâd be willing to bet you can take at least one thing away from this article that will help you track more accurately and see better results.Â
âŚEspecially if youâve been eating 1,200 calories a day but not losing weight.
Â
What is calorie counting?
The first thing you need to understand about weight loss is thisâŚ
If youâre not in a calorie deficit, it wonât happen.Â
That is the number one, overarching, indisputable, unquestionable rule.
Calorie deficit = weight loss.
You can eat super âhealthyâ or âclean.âÂ
You can practice intermittent fasting.
You can do fasted cardio every single morning.
But none of those just automatically put you in a deficit.
Whether or not youâre in a calorie deficit is directly tied to the number of calories you consume.
And thatâs where counting calories (which is exactly how it sounds) comes into play.
You keep track of how many calories you eat to ensure youâre eating the correct amount of food you should be for weight loss.
Counting calories is kind of like a food budget.
Some foods may be more expensive (i.e. higher in calories) than others.
Itâs your job to make food choices that help you stay within that budget and maintain your calorie deficit.Â
The cool thing about counting calories is that you donât have to deprive or restrict yourself.
You have the flexibility to still enjoy all the foods you love while seeing progress.
You can eat carbs like bread, rice, pasta, and noodles.
You can have foods with sugar like cookies, donuts, and cake.
You can eat foods like ice cream that are higher in fats.Â
So if you view foods as being either âgoodâ or âbadâ itâs time to ditch that way of thinking.Â
Foods donât have a moral value.Â
You can have anything you want in moderation.Â
Thatâs what counting calories using MyFitnessPal will help you withâ
Finding that nutrition âhappy mediumâ so you can see the weight loss results you want.
How do you calculate calories to lose weight?
The first step is using a calorie calculator like this one here.
Youâll be brought to the following screen (first screenshot below).Â
Input all your info and click âCalculate!â
Your next screen (the second screenshot) will show you your maintenance calories.Â
Your maintenance calories are just the number of calories youâd need to eat to maintain your current weight.
Take 80% of your maintenance calories and thatâs the number of calories you should be eating for weight loss.
So for example, if your maintenance calories came out to 2,500 your deficit calories would be 2,000 (2,500 x 0.8 = 2,000).Â
FYI, within those calories, you want to make sure youâre eating enough protein.
Protein is important for three primary reasons:
- It keeps you fuller for longer
- Eating it speeds up your metabolism
- You needâand I mean NEEDâit to build and maintain muscle mass (along with strength training). Muscle = more fat loss.Â
How to count calories: The basics
Before we get into how to use MyFitnessPal to log your food we first need to walk through, well, how to actually count calories.
I promise itâs not back-breaking work or some super difficult process you might think it is.
Step 1: Buy a food scale
Measuring spoons, cups, or even worse, eyeballing your food simply wonât cut it when it comes to counting calories.
If youâre serious about losing weight and want to make the most progress possible, invest in a food scale so you can start weighing out your food in grams.
I repeatâŚ
GRAMS.
Weighing your food out in grams is the most accurate way to count calories.
And staying consistent over the long haul with that leads to the results youâre after.
You can get a cheap food scale on Amazon for about $20 bucks.Â
And with that $20 dollar investment, youâll avoid spinning your wheels like a car stuck in the mud, wondering where youâve been going wrong with weight loss.Â
I canât stress enough how important getting a food scale is.
Without one, youâre just going to underestimate how much youâre eating and consume more calories than you should be.Â
Step 2: Reading nutrition labels
Once you get the food scale situation all sorted out, youâre ready to move on to reading nutrition labels.Â
This is the meat and potatoes of calorie counting so make sure youâre not just flying through this section.Â
Calorie counting exampleÂ
Letâs say you went to the grocery store (with this weight loss grocery list I created to make sure you stay on track) and got some rice.Â
Iâm just using the generic Walmart-brand.
As you can see, one serving is 46g of DRY (emphasis on the word “dry” rice, which is 170 calories.
Letâs say you want one serving of rice. What you would do prior to adding water and heating it up in the microwave or on the stove is weigh out 46g of dry rice using your food scale.
To be as accurate as possible, you need to make sure youâre weighing out your food in whatever form the nutrition label says (i.e. dry, raw, etc).
So, if the box has words on it like âdryâ or ârawâ next to the serving size, make sure youâre weighing it out before you cook it.
Now, back to our rice example.
Do you see how next to the serving size it says â½ cupâ?
This is the perfect example of why I said you want to weigh out your food in grams as opposed to using cups or spoons.Â
Grams will ALWAYS represent the true serving size.Â
Youâd be eating significantly more rice by measuring out ½ cup as opposed to the 46g.
Look at what happened when I weighed out ½ a cup of rice.Â
It ended up being 58g.
Thatâs roughly 25% more rice than you should be eating.
Peanut butter is another example of this.
If you were to compare the 2 Tbsp serving size vs. the 33g, there would be a huge difference.
Youâre eating a lot more peanut butter if you go by the 2 TBSP, which means youâd be consuming extra calories without even knowing it.
Key takeaways on reading nutrition labels
The two major takeaways when it comes to reading nutrition labels are these:
- Weigh out your food in grams (donât use cups, tablespoons, or anything like that).
- Weigh out your food based on the form thatâs on the box (i.e. dry, raw, etc).
How to use MyFitnessPal to Lose Weight
Now weâve reached the point where youâre ready to learn about how to log your food and count calories using MyFitnessPal.
Iâve been using MyFitnessPal to count calories and track macros for the past 7-ish years or so and donât have any complaints so Iâd say itâs a pretty solid calorie deficit app.Â
Create an account
Obviously, before you can use MyFitnessPal to count calories youâll need to create an account.Â
Just download the app on your phone, computer, or whatever it is youâre using, and follow the instructions to set up an account.
How to log your food in MyFitnessPal
There are a few different ways you use MyFitnessPal to count calories and log your food.
Weâll be going over the three most common ones.
1. Add foods using the search feature
Hereâs how you do that:
- Go into MyFitnessPal
- Click the blue âADD FOODâ button under the meal you want
- Click into the âSearch for a foodâ bar at the top of the screen
- Type in the food you want to log
- Multiple results will pop up but how do you know which one to go with? You can be as accurate as possible by making sure the nutrition label of the food you choose matches what MyFitnessPal says (sometimes, it might be a few calories off but thatâs okay). 9 times out of 10, youâll be safe going with foods that have a green checkmark next to them (weâll walk through an example here in a sec)
- Once you select the food you want, youâll be taken to a screen where you can enter the quantity, or have much of the food you had
- Click the check mark in the top right-hand corner to log your food
Letâs walk through these steps with a quick example.
Weâll use rice again.Â
Letâs say you want one serving
Youâd weigh out 46g of dry rice.
In MyFitnessPal, youâd then click the âADD FOODâ button under the meal you want.Â
Weâll just use lunch for this example.Â
Youâll be brought to a screen with a search bar where youâll type in the food you want.
Instead of typing in something generic like âriceâ try to be as specific as possible.Â
For this example, you might type something in like âgreat value riceâ since weâre using Walmart brand.Â
Once you have that all typed in, click enter.
Different results will pop up but try to find one with a green checkmark next to it (this means the foodâs been verified as correct by MyFitnessPal).
Also, you can further ensure you have the correct food by matching up the calories from the nutrition label with what MyFitnessPal has.
Again, itâs okay youâre a few calories off.Â
Thatâs exactly what happens with our rice example.
The nutrition label says a serving size is 170 calories while MyFitnessPal has 160 calories.
10 calories though, no big deal at all.
The next screen will be where you input your serving size and how many servings youâre having.
We know that the ½ cup of dry rice is really 46g (which youâve already measured out)Â
And youâre having one serving of that.
Once you have that entered in, just click the check mark in the top right-hand corner to log your food.
After making your way back to the home screen, hereâs what it should like:
Notice how at the top it shows you how many calories you have remaining after logging the rice (your calorie goal will obviously be different depending on what you put in MyFitnessPal).Â
And then, under lunch, youâll see the rice you just recorded.Â
Side note: As you continue to use MyFitnessPal to count calories, youâll accumulate a list of foods you commonly eat in your history (see the screenshot below) so you won’t have to go through all these steps every single time.
2. Quick AddÂ
Letâs say you have a recipe that tells you the total calories.Â
Or for whatever reason you canât find the specific food you want but you know the total number of calories.
You can just use the quick add feature.
Hereâs how to use the quick add feature:
- Go to the meal you want (i.e. breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks)
- Click the three little gray dots symbol to the right
- Select âQuick Add.âÂ
From there, you can just enter the total calories from your meal and log it.
Â
3. Scan the barcode
This is a premium feature now but it didnât used to be back when I first started using MyFitnessPal to count calories.
How times have changed đ
Premium isnât something I have and In my humble opinion it isnât worth it
You can do everything you need to do with the basic, regular version.Â
But this method can add some convenience to counting calories
All you have to do is simply use your phone to scan the barcode of the food youâre eating and itâll instantly pull up all the nutritional information to log your calories.Â
Your screen would look like thisâŚ
And then like this (if youâre like me and not paying for premium)…
If you do decide to go with the premium version of MyFitnessPal to count calories, you wonât get that âSay hello to your best selfâ message.
Youâd just be able to add the food you want.
Donât make the following calorie counting mistakes!
- Trying to eyeball it / Not using a food scale: The most accurate way to count calories is to weigh out your food in grams. Cups, measuring spoons, or maybe even worse, trying to eyeball or estimate your portion sizes, donât count as truly counting calories. When you use cups or tablespoons, youâre measuring volume but solid foods like chicken breast, potatoes, and rice need to be measured in grams (a unit of weight) to be accurate.Â
- Not logging all the quick snacks, extra bites, nibbles, and sips you take throughout the day: Yes, every time you walk by your coworkerâs desk and grab a handful of M&Mâs, those count as calories. If it goes in your mouth (weâre talking food here people đ), you need to account for it.
- Not accounting for cooking oils or liquid calories: This includes your Starbucks coffee and alcohol (which contains 7 calories per gram).Â
- Measuring meats cooked as opposed to raw: You should be weighing foods out like chicken, beef, etc prior to cooking it. Same with foods like rice, or pastaâweigh them out dry then cook.
- Neglecting to count on the weekend: Hereâs some weight loss truth for youâŚPretending calories donât count on the weekends doesnât make it a reality. You canât make your weekends one giant cheat meal free-for-all and expect to make any real progress.
- Tracking some days and not others or only tracking a couple meals and then burying your head in the sand for the rest, as if those calories donât count.
How do you calculate calories in a meal?
You know how to enter individual foods into MyFitnessPal.Â
But how do you count calories when you want to log homemade food or recipes?Â
Do you really want the hassle of individually logging every single ingredient of your go-to lasagna dish and figuring out the serving size for each? Â
And doing that every single time you eat it?
The good news is you donât have to do that.Â
Read through THIS POST and youâll learn how to easily log homemade foods and recipes in MyFitnessPal.Â
Â
Using MyFitnessPal to count calories FAQs
How long until I see weight loss from counting calories using MyFitnessPal?
If you are truly in a calorie deficit (thereâs a difference between thinking youâre in one and actually being in one) you can expect to see some type of progressâwhether that be weight loss and/or inch lossâwithin about 1-3 weeks.
If youâve recently started strength training, you might build muscle and lose fat at the same time.
Thatâs the reason why youâd lose inches but not weight at first.
How do I use MyFitnessPal to count calories when Iâm out to eat?
This article I wrote is all about how to fit eating out into our weight loss journey.
Click the blue link below to read it:
HOW TO EAT OUT AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT
But when it comes to using MyFitnessPal to count calories, a lot of restaurants will actually have their menus in there.
Hereâs an example:Â
If youâre out to eat and you canât find a perfect match for the food you want, donât worry, the worldâs not going to come crashing down. Â
Just find a comparable restaurant with a comparable food and log that.
Something is better than nothing.Â
How does MyFitnessPal calculate calories burned from exercise?Â
I know a lot of emphasis gets placed on calories burned (which, in actuality, doesnât really mean a whole lot) but one thing you do NOT want to do is log your exercise calories.Â
What's up?
I’m Chad, I’m happy you’re here! Iâm a certified personal trainer and my goal is to help you form practical, sustainable habits that lead to lifelong fitness results. If you want to lose fat, build muscle, and live a healthier, happier life then youâre right where you need to be. đŞđž
Free resources
âŹâŹâŹ
0 Comments