My Fitness Pal or My Fitness Fail?

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As a busy college student, it can be really hard to eat well.  You’re always on the run, taking a handful of this or just a bite of that, never really paying attention to what you’re eating or how much.  I didn’t like the fact that I never could remember what I ate throughout the day.  Because of this, I decided to download my fitness pal.  It’s an app that you can track all your food.  It will track the calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, fiber, sugar, and even some vitamins that are in your food and give you a daily recommendation for all of them.  It was super helpful.  I always did my best to put everything I ate into my app. Occasionally, I’d miss a day or two but for the most part I was pretty consistent with it.  However, there were some days where I was confused how my carbohydrates were so low for the day because I knew I had consumed more than what the app had calculated for me.  Also, before I’d go to a restaurant I would search in my app for the different foods they had so I could look at the nutrition facts before I got there but I noticed many times that the foods would be listed on the app more than once and each option was different.  This made things kind of hard.  Of course, I wanted to use the option that had less calories but I wasn’t real sure how accurate that would be and if it wasn’t going to be accurate what was the point in even using the app?  Well, I came to find out that my fitness pal does do some of the research on the food information on their own, but also allows members to submit nutrition content whenever they want.  They even have a link on their website that users can click on if they think the nutrition information is correct or not. Ultimately, it seems that the accuracy of the information is up to its users…which is a bit of a scary thought!  So, the question now is, do we still use it? After looking more in to it, I’ve decided that it is still a useful app.  It still helps keep you aware of what you’re eating throughout the day and gives you an idea of the amount of calories you’re taking in, even if it’s not 100% accurate.  If you are trying to count your macros down to the gram then I would not rely on this app but if you are just looking for a way to keep your eating in check then I think this is a good way to do it!  Think of my fitness pal more as a food journal than a calorie counter.  However, if you really want to use it as a calorie counter just do your own research on the food you’re putting into the app and see if the information from the app is the same as what you find.  You would be doing all of us my fitness pal users a big favor!!

MG

MyFitnessPal. (2018). Some food information in the database is.... [online] Available at: https://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/13980-some-food-information-in-the-database-is-inaccurate-can-i-edit-it

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