5 Easy Steps To Set Up MyFitnessPal: Track Calories & Macronutrients

What is MyFitnessPal?

If you haven’t heard of this awesome nutrition app yet, MyFitnessPal (MFP for short) is a food tracking app. It’s available on both Apple and Android devices. MyFitnessPal is what I generally have all of my nutrition coaching clients use. This app is meant to give you insight towards if you’re not eating the right amount of calories and macronutrients.

Macronutrients & Micronutrients

Macronutrient, often referred to as macros is a catch all term for the three primary types of nutrients that make up the majority of what we consume. The three macros are protein, fat and carbohydrate. We require varying amounts of each to function properly. Micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals found within macronutrients. Read on to learn about each type of macro and its role in a healthy diet:

Carbohydrates

Carbs are an important source of energy. They power not only your physical body but contribute to efficient brain function as well. Long term diets consisting of low carbs can actually cause depression, anxiety and anger! You see, when we consume carbs, our digestive system breaks them into tiny sugar molecules known as glucose. When our bodies don’t get the glucose it needs, it negatively impacts our central nervous system(CNS). Signs the CNS is negatively being effected include dizziness, head rushes, physical and mental weakness.

That being said, when we consume carbs our blood sugars rise because of the resulting glucose. And when blood sugars rise, insulin levels rise right along with it. Rising blood sugar and insulin levels send excess glucose into fat cells to be stored for later. If you’re trying to lose weight or trying not to gain weight then this could be counterproductive.

The moral of the story here is you want to make sure you’re getting enough carbohydrates. Not too much, but not too little either.

Fat

Ah, good old fat. There was a time when it was believed that a fat free diet was the answer to all weight loss problems. I’ve learned that any extreme answer is rarely the solution to any problem. Healthy fats are good for you because they can help lower your risk of heart disease and stroke, balance cholesterol, even out sugar levels and reduce unhealthy cravings. Healthy fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. A moderate amount of animal fats are okay but typically the healthiest fats will be your plant based fats.

During digestion, fat triggers your body to put forth cholecystokinin. Cholecystokinin is a helpful little hormone that slows down the elimination process. This means the food stays in your stomach a little longer. This is actually a good thing because it triggers a more thorough digestion process, resulting in better absorption of nutrients. It also means you stay feeling full for longer!

Part of the “fat free” dieting fad stemmed from the fact that fats are higher in calories than most foods. So that is something to watch out for when trying to maintain or lose weight. It does not however mean that you should not consume any fat. What it always come down to is finding balance. The way you find balance in this case, is determining what is the right amount of fat for you and your goals.

Protein

Protein, the building blocks of life! In my experience, most people are not consuming as much protein as they ought to on a daily basis. Every cell in the human body contains protein. Many of the important chemical reactions that occur within our bodies depend on the enzymes found in protein. Protein is found everywhere within the body: our muscles, tissues, skin, hair, nails, blood and more! Our body is also dependent on sufficient protein stores in order to produce the adequate energy necessary for day to day living.

Just like the other two macros, there are healthy and not so healthy protein sources. Researchers have found that lean meats (such as fish and poultry), beans, nuts, and other plant based proteins can lower the risk many diseases even extend life expectancies. On the flip side, studies have shown that consumption of red meats and processed meats increase the chances of developing diseases that result in decreased quality of life and even early death.

Protein is a must in any well balanced diet, but too much protein can cause lasting damage to kidney function. So once more, we see that finding balance is the key. For most healthy diets you need at least .36g per pound of bodyweight. However, if you have weight loss and/or muscle building goals then you’ll want to at least double this!

How to Track Calories & Macros using MyFitnessPal

With MyFitnessPal it’s easy to track your food, even if you’ve never done it before. Or maybe I should say especially if you’ve never done it before! Here are my five easy steps for using the MFP app:

1. Set Your Daily Calorie Goal

Numero uno is setting up your daily calorie goal. The best way to do this is to base it on your age, gender, height, current weight, desired weight, and general daily activity level. When you first download and set up the app it asks you some questions to determine this, but chances are you will want to update it from time to time. To make changes to your calorie goals, click on “More” then “Goals” and next “Goal Weight.”

2. Set Your Daily Macros Goal

Next step is setting daily macros! This is, in my opinion, even more important than setting your daily calorie goals. The default setting for macronutrient goals set by MyFitnessPal is 50% carbs, 20% protein, and 30% fat. However, depending on your health and fitness goals you will most likely want to alter this a bit. MFP converts each percentage into grams. This is where the Premium version of the app can be advantageous, as it gives you the option of simply putting in each macro according to how many grams you want. Nevertheless you always want to make sure that the three percentages add up to 100%.

3. Start Adding Foods

I encourage my clients to plan what they’re going at the beginning of each day (the night before also works). It’s kind of like a mental form of meal prepping. However, this is completely up to you. You can plan everything in the morning, input foods at the end of the day, or enter as you go with each meal. Regardless of which you choose to do, you’re going to want to go to the “Diary” section of the app. In this section, you’ll see there’s a category for each meal (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks). To enter a food you’ll choose the “Add Food” option under each category. This will bring up a page with a search bar at the top. Type in the food you want to log and browse through the options until you find the one you’re looking for. For even faster results, you can also scan a barcode by pressing the “+” sign at the top righthand corner of the “Add Food” page!

4. Enter Everything You Eat Throughout the Day

Practice makes perfect and with repetition it will become second nature! For best results, and the most accurate representation of what you’re taking in- you’ll need to track everything you eat throughout the day. This includes drinks, creamer in coffee, sugar, condiments (mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, etc.). Basically, anything that contains calories.

5. “Complete Diary” at The End of Each Day

At the end of the day, after you’ve entered it all, press the blue “Complete diary” button at the bottom of the page. The cool thing about this MFP feature is that it will tell you how on track you are to achieving your health and weight loss goals.

Interested in Receiving More Help?

I hope this article answers many of your questions and leaves you feeling empowered to get a handle on your daily nutrition! That being said, I realize there’s a lot that goes into making a healthy lifestyle change such as this. Click here to use my FREE calorie & macronutrient calculator!

Have any other tips you’d like to share for successfully using and navigating MyFitnessPal? Drop a comment below to help others!