How To Get The Most Out of MyFitnessPal

If you’ve ever tried using MyFitnessPal (MFP) for fat loss, you’ve probably been through this cycle: You start off strong, tracking diligently. But after a while, it feels tedious. Some days you track, other days you forget. Eventually, frustration sets in, and you quit. Does this sound familiar?

I get it. I’ve been coaching nutrition and helping people use MyFitnessPal effectively for nearly a decade, and I’ve seen this happen to countless people. The problem isn’t the app, it’s how you’re using it.

When used correctly, MyFitnessPal is one of the most powerful tools for fat loss, but most people don’t take full advantage of it. In this guide, I’ll show you how to make MFP accurate, efficient, and effective for sustainable fat loss. I’ll also share some hacks, and show you how to get the most out of myFitnessPal.

How To Get The Most Out Of MyFitnessPal

Setting Your Calories Correctly 

If you get this one thing wrong, everything else falls apart. You could be the most diligent tracker in the world, logging every bite, weighing every gram of food, and never missing a day, but if your calorie target is incorrect, your fat loss efforts will be a frustrating waste of time.

And yet, most people blindly trust the calorie target that MyFitnessPal spits out at them when they first sign up.

This is a big mistake.

MyFitnessPal’s suggested calorie target isn’t tailored to you. It doesn’t account for your body composition, metabolism, dieting history, muscle mass, or individual energy needs. It’s a generic calculation based on outdated formulas that often sets people up for failure.

So, before we even get into tracking food accurately, we need to fix your calorie target first.

Why MyFitnessPal’s Suggested Calories Can Set You Up for Failure

There are a number of reasons why MyFitnessPal’s calorie suggestions are often incorrect, and understanding these can help you to actually set your diet up for success.

1. Unrealistic Weight Loss Goals

Most people want results fast. And I get it, when you finally decide to commit to losing weight, you don’t want to waste time. You want to see progress immediately.

So, when MyFitnessPal asks how fast you want to lose weight, you think:

“Well… the faster, the better, right?”

Wrong.

This is the #1 mistake people make. They pick the most aggressive option because it sounds great on paper. But here’s the problem:

The more aggressively you cut calories, the harder it becomes to sustain your diet.

A severe calorie deficit might feel doable for the first few days, but then…

• Hunger kicks in and your stomach constantly growls.
• You feel exhausted as your body isn’t getting enough fuel.
• You get irritable and you’re snapping at people over tiny things.
• Your workouts suffer, and you have no strength or energy in the gym.
• You start craving junk food like crazy, because your body is desperate for calories.

And what happens next?

You give in. You binge. You feel like a failure. And eventually, you quit.

This isn’t your fault, it’s the calorie target’s fault.

So what’s the right pace for weight loss?

Generally, we suggest that you aim for 0.5% to 1% of your body weight loss per week.

This range allows you to lose fat steadily without feeling miserable.

If you’re new to fat loss, go with 0.5%. It gives you more food flexibility and makes dieting easier to sustain long-term.

If you’re experienced and have dieted successfully before, you can push closer to 1%.

Anything faster than this and you’ll more than likely burn out quickly, lose muscle mass, and set yourself up for failure.

2. Incorrect Activity Level Selection

Most people massively overestimate how much they move and underestimate how much they eat, and MyFitnessPal doesn’t help.

When setting up your profile, MFP asks for your activity level:

• Sedentary (little to no movement)
• Lightly Active (light exercise 1-3 days per week)
• Moderately Active (moderate exercise 3-5 days per week)
• Very Active (hard exercise 6-7 days per week)

The problem? Almost everyone chooses a level too high.

Just because you go to the gym 3-4 times a week doesn’t mean you’re “Moderately Active.”

If you have a desk job and sit for most of the day, you’re still mostly sedentary, even if you exercise regularly.

Why does this matter?

Well, if you choose the wrong activity level, MyFitnessPal gives you too many calories.

As a result, you think you’re eating in a calorie deficit, but your maintenance calories were overestimated. So you don’t lose weight, or worse, you gain weight.

This is actually an easy fix. You just have to choose an activity level conservatively.

If you have a desk job and only exercise a few times per week: Select Sedentary or Lightly Active.
If you have an active job (construction, retail, waiter) and exercise regularly: Select Moderately Active.
If you’re an athlete or have a highly active lifestyle: Select Very Active.

It’s better to start lower and adjust up later than to start too high and get frustrated with no results.

3. No Testing or Adjustments

Ultimately, MyFitnessPal does not know your unique metabolism or situation. It’s just a calculator, giving you a best guess. It isn’t perfect.

Even if you choose the “right” calorie target and activity level, it’s still just an estimate.

The only way to know if your calorie intake is correct is to track your weight, hunger, and energy levels over time.

How to Get Your Ideal Calorie Target

With all this in mind, how do you actually set your calories correctly?

Step 1: Use a More Accurate Calorie Calculator

Instead of trusting MyFitnessPal’s estimate, use a more reliable calorie calculator like the Triage Calorie Calculator.

This will result in a much more accurate calorie calculation.

Step 2: Choose an Activity Level Conservatively

Remember, most people overestimate how much they move. If in doubt, choose the lower option, you can always increase later.

Step 3: Test Your Calories for 2 Weeks

Once you have a starting calorie target, track your weight and adjust accordingly.

• If you’re losing 0.5-1% of your body weight per week: Stay the course. You’re in a perfect calorie deficit.
• If you’re losing weight too fast (more than 1.5% per week): Increase calories slightly, you don’t want to burn out.
• If you’re not losing weight at all: Double-check your tracking accuracy. If tracking is solid, reduce calories by 100-200 per day and reassess in 2 weeks.

Key Takeaways: Setting Up Your Calories the Right Way

• Never trust MyFitnessPal’s default calorie goal.
• Set realistic fat loss expectations (0.5-1% per week).
• Be conservative when choosing your activity level.
• Test your calorie intake for 2 weeks and adjust as needed.

Get this step right, and everything else (tracking, consistency, and results) becomes 10x easier.

Now that your calorie target is set up properly, let’s move on to Improving Your Tracking Accuracy. 

Improving the Accuracy of Your Tracking

Most people think they’re accurately tracking their food intake, but in reality, they aren’t. Even small mistakes like misjudging portion sizes, choosing the wrong database entry, or forgetting to log a snack, can add up to hundreds of unaccounted calories per day. That’s enough to completely stall fat loss or even cause weight gain, despite feeling like you’re doing everything right.

The truth is, calorie tracking is a skill, not just a simple data entry task. And like any skill, it takes practice, awareness, and a few expert strategies to get it right. If you want to get the most out of MyFitnessPal (and actually see results), you need to dial in your accuracy and create a tracking system that’s both precise and sustainable.

How Small Tracking Mistakes Can Derail Your Progress

Imagine you’re aiming to eat 1,800 calories per day. You log your meals, check MyFitnessPal, and everything looks perfect. You should be in a calorie deficit, right? But somehow, your weight isn’t dropping. What’s going wrong?

Here’s what might actually be happening:

• You measure a tablespoon of peanut butter but don’t level it off, so you’re actually eating 1.5 tablespoons (40 extra calories).
• You track your pasta after cooking instead of before, underestimating by 50 grams (70 extra calories).
• You drizzle olive oil onto your salad but forget to log it, adding 120 uncounted calories.
• You grab a few handfuls of almonds during the day but don’t think it’s worth tracking, easily adding 150-200 hidden calories.
• You choose a generic “chicken sandwich” entry in MyFitnessPal that says it’s 400 calories, but the real version with mayo and cheese is closer to 650. You’ve under-tracked by 250 calories without realising it.

By the end of the day, you’ve eaten 500+ extra calories, completely erasing your calorie deficit. And because the errors are spread across multiple meals, you don’t even notice them.

This is why improving tracking accuracy is the difference between effortless fat loss and frustrating stagnation.

How to Maximise Tracking Accuracy (The Right Way)

1. Track Individual Ingredients (Not Generic Food Items)

One of the most common mistakes people make is relying on MyFitnessPal’s generic food database.

Let’s say you’re eating a chicken sandwich for lunch. You search for “chicken sandwich” in MyFitnessPal, and a dozen different options pop up. One says it’s 320 calories, another says 500, and another says 700. Which one do you choose?

The reality is, potentially none of these are accurate because restaurant-style sandwiches vary drastically based on the portion size, ingredients, and how they’re prepared.

Instead of choosing a generic, unreliable entry, break it down and log each ingredient separately:

• Chicken breast (grilled, 120g = 130 calories)
• Sandwich bread (whole wheat, 2 slices = 160 calories)
• Mayo (1 tbsp = 100 calories)
• Lettuce & tomato (basically zero calories)

This eliminates guesswork and gives you an exact breakdown of what you’re actually eating. It also helps you identify high-calorie ingredients (like mayo and cheese) that might be sabotaging your progress.

2. Save Meals & Recipes to Save Time

One of the biggest reasons people stop tracking is because it feels tedious. Manually entering every single ingredient for every meal can get exhausting.

That’s why MyFitnessPal’s “Save Meal” and “Create Recipe” features are game changers.

If you tend to eat the same meals regularly, like a smoothie for breakfast, a wrap for lunch, or a stir-fry for dinner, save them in MyFitnessPal so you don’t have to log each ingredient every single time.

For example:

• Instead of entering: Oats, protein powder, almond milk, peanut butter, banana, and cinnamon every morning…
• Save it as a single “Protein Oats” meal so you can add it with one tap.

Over time, this drastically reduces the effort required to log your food and makes tracking a seamless habit instead of a daily chore.

3. Use the Barcode Scanner (Even Without Paying for Premium!)

The barcode scanner is one of MyFitnessPal’s best features, but now it’s locked behind a paywall. Fortunately, there are ways to still use it for free without upgrading to MyFitnessPal Premium.

Here’s how:

1. Change your location to the UK, Ireland, or Canada in MyFitnessPal settings. Some users report that in these regions, the barcode scanner is still free.
2. Use an older version of MyFitnessPal. If you’re on Android, you can download an APK file of a pre-2022 version of the app that still has the barcode scanner available for free.
3. Use the free trial strategically. If you sign up for a 30-day trial of MyFitnessPal Premium, spend that time scanning every single food you eat to build up a custom database. Once the trial ends, you can still manually search for those foods in your history instead of scanning new items.
4. Use an alternative app like Lose It! This app has a free barcode scanner and can be used alongside MyFitnessPal.

While it’s annoying that MFP put this feature behind a paywall, these workarounds still let you benefit from it without paying.

4. Weigh Your Food in Grams (Not Cups or Spoons!)

Measuring food with cups, tablespoons, or “eyeballing” is one of the worst things you can do if you’re serious about accuracy (unless you are an expert at tracking).

Here’s why:

• A “cup” of rice or pasta can vary by 50+ grams depending on how it’s packed.
• Peanut butter or oils stick to measuring spoons, meaning you’re likely using more than you log.
• Cooking changes food weight, so tracking “1 cup cooked rice” is inconsistent because water weight varies.

Instead, always use a food scale and track foods in grams.

• Rice, oats, pasta → Weigh dry/uncooked.
• Chicken, beef, fish → Weigh raw before cooking.
• Nut butters, oils, sauces → Weigh directly on the scale before adding to food.

A digital scale costs €10-15 and will improve your tracking accuracy instantly.

5. Learn to Eyeball Portions (For When You Can’t Weigh Food)

While weighing your food is ideal, you won’t always have a scale available, especially when eating out. That’s why it’s important to train yourself to estimate portion sizes.

A great way to practice is by making it a game:

• Before placing food on the scale, guess the weight.
• Write it down, then check the actual weight.
• Adjust over time until your estimates are consistently close.

After a few weeks of doing this, you’ll develop a more intuitive sense of portion sizes, so even if you can’t track perfectly, you can stay close enough to keep seeing results.

6. Track Immediately (Not at the End of the Day)

Trying to remember everything you ate at night leads to inaccurate tracking and forgotten calories.

The best way to stay accurate is to log your food immediately before or after eating. If that feels overwhelming, try pre-logging your entire day the night before. This removes the feeling of decision fatigue and makes it easier to stick to your plan.

By implementing these strategies, you’ll drastically improve the accuracy of your tracking, and you will get a lot more out of MyFitnessPal.

Handling Eating Out & “Untrackable” Foods

One of the biggest challenges with tracking food intake, whether you’re using MyFitnessPal or any other method, is dealing with the unknown variables when eating out. At home, you can measure, weigh, and control everything you put on your plate. But the second you step into a restaurant, order takeout, or eat something prepared by someone else, your ability to track perfectly goes out the window.

But here’s the truth: you don’t need perfection. You just need to be close enough.

Many people give up on tracking when they go out to eat because they feel like it’s impossible to be accurate. They either stress over every little detail or throw their hands up and say, “Screw it,” turning a single untracked meal into a full day (or week) of poor eating choices. This all-or-nothing mindset is where people go wrong.

You will never be able to track restaurant meals with 100% accuracy. And that’s okay. Your goal isn’t to be exact, it’s to get as close as reasonably possible so that small miscalculations don’t completely throw off your progress.

How to Track Restaurant & Takeout Meals Accurately

There are a few strategies that really help with tracking these kinds of meals.

Breaking Down Meals into Individual Ingredients

As we discussed before, breaking things down into their individual ingredients can really help. When tracking restaurant meals, breaking them down into their individual components whenever possible can allow you to be much more accurate with food. Instead of searching for a generic “chicken sandwich” in MyFitnessPal, which can give you wildly different calorie estimates, think about what’s actually in it.

Let’s take an example. You order a grilled chicken sandwich from a café. Instead of relying on MyFitnessPal’s random database entries, log the meal by tracking each ingredient separately:

• Grilled chicken breast (roughly 120-150g)
• Sandwich bun (estimate based on standard sizes)
• Mayo or sauce (always assume 1-2 tablespoons unless you specifically request less)
• Lettuce, tomato, onions, etc. (essentially zero calories)

By doing this, you get a much closer estimate to the real calorie content. If you’re at a restaurant where you can actually see what’s on your plate, this is the most reliable method of tracking.

Using Chain Restaurant Entries as a Reference

If you’re eating something that’s hard to break down into individual ingredients, like a burrito from a small taqueria or a pasta dish from an Italian restaurant, use entries from well-known chain restaurants as a proxy.

For example:

• Burgers: Use McDonald’s or Five Guys as a guide.
• Burritos or bowls: Check Chipotle’s calorie listings.
• Chinese takeout: Look at Panda Express for approximate values.
• Italian dishes: Olive Garden has calorie counts for common pastas and sauces.

Chain restaurants provide detailed nutritional information because they have standardised portions, making them a useful baseline when eating similar meals elsewhere.

Grocery Store Ready-Meals as a Proxy

Another great trick is to use supermarket pre-packaged meals as a reference point. If you go to an Indian restaurant and order Chicken Tikka Masala with rice, you’re never going to know the exact calories, but you can look up a Tesco or Whole Foods ready-meal version of Chicken Tikka Masala and use that as an estimate.

The key here is adjusting the portion size. Grocery store meals tend to be smaller than restaurant portions, so if the store version lists a meal as 500 calories, it’s safe to assume the restaurant version is at least 750–1,000 calories due to larger servings and added oils.

Accounting for Hidden Calories: Multiply by 1.5 to 2x

Restaurants use a lot of butter, oil, and hidden ingredients that make food more calorie-dense than you’d expect. If you want to make sure you’re not underestimating, a simple rule of thumb is to multiply the estimated calories by 1.5 to 2x.

For example, if a generic “pasta with tomato sauce” entry in MyFitnessPal says 600 calories, the restaurant version is probably closer to 900–1,200 calories because of the added olive oil, cheese, and larger portion sizes.

If you’re in a fat loss phase and don’t want to take chances, round up your estimate. It’s much better to slightly overestimate than to underestimate and unknowingly stall your progress.

Don’t Let Sneaky Calories Ruin Your Progress

Even when you’re tracking carefully, hidden calories can creep into your diet and throw you off. This is especially true when eating out, but it can also happen at home if you’re not paying attention.

1. Cooking Oils & Butter

One of the biggest sources of untracked calories is oil. Restaurants love using oil because it makes food taste better and keeps it from sticking to the pan. A single tablespoon of oil adds 120 calories to your meal, and most restaurant meals contain at least 2–3 tablespoons without you even realising it.

If you want to keep things under control, ask for grilled proteins without added oil and avoid dishes that are swimming in butter or sauce. At home, use a cooking spray instead of free-pouring oil into the pan, this can save you hundreds of calories per meal.

2. Condiments & Sauces

A meal might seem healthy until you realise how much sauce is on it. A grilled chicken salad? Sounds like a great choice, until you realise the ranch dressing alone has 300 calories. A light wrap? Could be fine, until you factor in the Chipotle mayo dripping off the sides.

To avoid hidden sauce calories:

• Ask for sauces and dressings on the side so you can control how much you use.
• Opt for low-calorie or vinaigrette-based dressings instead of creamy ones.
• Be aware of sneaky high-calorie condiments like BBQ sauce, ketchup, and aioli.

3. Liquid Calories

Drinks are an easy way to accidentally overconsume calories without realising it. A single glass of orange juice has around 150 calories, a Starbucks Frappuccino can be 400+ calories, and a large drink at a restaurant might be 250+ calories, all from liquid sugar that doesn’t fill you up at all.

The best approach is to stick with zero-calorie drinks like water, black coffee, or diet sodas when you’re eating out. If you do want something more flavourful, be mindful of how much you’re consuming and log it accurately.

4. Untracked Snacks & Mindless Eating

One of the most common ways people sabotage their fat loss efforts is through mindless eating.

You might be great at tracking meals, but if you’re snacking throughout the day and not logging it, you’re probably eating way more than you think.

A handful of nuts here, a few sweets there, a bite of a cookie from the office kitchen, it all adds up. Nuts, in particular, are one of the biggest culprits because they’re so calorie-dense. A small handful of almonds? That’s over 150 calories.

To prevent this, make a habit of tracking everything you eat, even the small stuff. If you eat a snack, log it. If you grab a handful of nuts, weigh them. If you eat a bite of a friend’s dessert, estimate it.

Eating Out and “Untrackable” Foods

You don’t need to track restaurant meals perfectly, you just need to get close enough to keep your progress on track. By breaking meals down into individual ingredients, using chain restaurant or grocery store equivalents, and accounting for hidden calories, you can navigate eating out without sabotaging your diet.

And most importantly, don’t let one untracked meal turn into a downward spiral. If you go out to eat and aren’t totally sure about the calories, just do your best estimate, move on, and get back on track at the next meal. One imperfect meal won’t ruin your progress, but a week of untracked eating will.

A Few More Tips to Get the Most Out of MyFitnessPal

If you really want to optimise your MyFitnessPal experience, there are several strategies that can make tracking faster, more efficient, and more sustainable.

The goal is to turn MyFitnessPal into a tool that works for you, rather than something that feels like a chore. While I touched on some of these tips earlier, I just want to flesh things out a bit more for you, so you can really get the most out of MyFitnessPal.

1. Pre-Log Your Meals for the Day

One of the simplest ways to stay on track and avoid impulsive eating is to log your meals ahead of time. Instead of tracking as you go (or even worse, at the end of the day when you’ve already eaten everything), try this:

• At night, plan what you’re going to eat the next day and enter everything into MyFitnessPal in advance.
• If you don’t want to plan a full day, at least log breakfast and lunch ahead of time.

Pre-logging removes the guesswork and makes it easier to stick to your calorie goal. Instead of wondering, “Do I have enough calories left for dinner?” you’ll already know in advance. This eliminates the feeling of decision fatigue, makes meal prep easier, and reduces the risk of going over your calories.

If your plans change and you eat something different, you can always adjust the log later, but having a preset plan keeps you in control rather than making reactive choices throughout the day.

2. Create a List of “Go-To” Foods and Meals

One of the most time-consuming parts of using MyFitnessPal is searching for and entering foods every single day. The best way to streamline this is to build a personal database of your most common foods and meals.

• If you frequently eat the same breakfast (e.g., eggs and toast, protein oats, Greek yogurt with fruit), save those meals in MyFitnessPal so you can log them with one tap.
• If you make a homemade dish regularly, create a custom recipe in the app instead of entering each ingredient every time.

Having a go-to list of meals speeds up tracking significantly. Over time, you won’t need to search or scan barcodes anymore, you’ll have a fully personalised MyFitnessPal experience that requires minimal effort.

3. Be Consistent with How You Track Food

A huge mistake many people make is switching between different types of food entries for the same thing. One day, they track “grilled chicken breast” from a generic database entry, the next day they scan a barcode for pre-packaged chicken, and another time they use an entry with “USDA” in the title.

This inconsistency makes tracking inaccurate because each entry might have slightly different calorie counts.

To keep things reliable:

• Use the same food entries every time (preferably ones with a USDA tag or a green verification checkmark).
• If you weigh foods raw, always track raw. If you weigh cooked, always track cooked. Switching back and forth creates confusion and errors.

When you’re consistent with how you track, your calorie intake becomes much more predictable, which makes fat loss easier.

4. Don’t Forget Macro Tracking for Better Results

Calories are the most important factor in fat loss, but macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats) play a huge role in body composition, muscle retention, and satiety.

MyFitnessPal allows you to track macros in addition to calories, and using this feature gives you a better understanding of how your diet affects your results.

Why Macros Matter:

• Protein helps preserve muscle mass and keeps you full.
• Carbs fuel your workouts and energy levels.
• Fats are essential for health and overall well-being.

By tracking macros, you can make sure your diet isn’t just calorie appropriate, but also well-balanced for optimal performance and satiety.

If you’re serious about getting the best results, adjust your macro goals in MyFitnessPal to make sure you’re eating enough protein and balancing carbs and fats to suit your preferences.

5. Track for Awareness, Not Perfection

One of the biggest mental roadblocks with tracking is thinking you need to be 100% perfect all the time. This often leads to frustration, burnout, and eventually quitting MyFitnessPal altogether.

Here’s the truth: you don’t need perfect accuracy to see results.

Calorie tracking is an estimate, and your goal is to be as close as reasonably possible, not flawless. If you track consistently and focus on being 80–90% accurate, you’ll still see amazing progress over time.

Instead of stressing over whether you logged exactly 125g of chicken or if it was actually 130g, focus on big-picture consistency. Over weeks and months, it all balances out.

The key is sticking with it long-term, not obsessing over tiny details.

Making MyFitnessPal Work for You

MyFitnessPal is an incredibly powerful tool, but only if you use it efficiently and consistently. The goal isn’t to turn tracking into a tedious daily task but to make it as easy and automated as possible.

By implementing these advanced tracking strategies, you can:

• Reduce the time and effort required to log your food.
• Improve tracking accuracy without making it overwhelming.
• Stay on track with your goals without feeling restricted.

At the end of the day, the best tracking system is the one you can actually stick to. The more you simplify and refine your process, the more seamless and effective MyFitnessPal will become.

Key Mistakes That Sabotage Your Progress

Even with the best tracking system in place, many people unknowingly make mistakes that slow down or completely stall their fat loss progress. The problem is, these mistakes often feel like you’re doing the right thing, which is why they’re so sneaky.

You log your food, stick to your calorie goal, exercise regularly, and yet… your weight isn’t dropping the way you expected. You get frustrated, start doubting the process, and might even think, “Maybe my metabolism is broken?”

But the issue usually isn’t your metabolism. It’s the small, overlooked mistakes that quietly add up over time, making you eat more than you realise or overestimate the impact of your workouts.

If you’re not seeing the results you want, it’s time to identify and fix these progress-killing mistakes.

Relying on Exercise Calories to Justify Eating More

One of the biggest mistakes people make with MyFitnessPal is trusting the app’s estimates of how many calories they burn through exercise.

At first, it seems logical, if you burn 500 calories on the treadmill, shouldn’t you be able to eat 500 more calories and still stay on track? That’s how the app is designed, after all. But this is where things go wrong.

Why You Should Never Trust MyFitnessPal’s Exercise Calories

MyFitnessPal massively overestimates calorie burn.

If you enter a workout into the app, let’s say, a 30-minute jog, it might tell you that you burned 400-500 calories. In reality, you probably burned half that amount, if even that much.

Here’s why:

1. Most calorie burn estimates are inflated. Even fitness trackers and smartwatches overestimate how many calories you burn because they don’t account for individual differences like muscle mass, efficiency, and metabolic adaptation. The numbers look nice, but they aren’t accurate.
2. Your body compensates for exercise. When you burn more calories through exercise, your body naturally adjusts by moving less the rest of the day. You might fidget less, sit more, or unconsciously conserve energy in ways you don’t notice. You can somewhat account for this by standardising step count, but it doesn’t cover everything.
3. Eating back exercise calories erases your deficit. If you let MyFitnessPal add “calories burned” to your daily total and then eat those calories, you could accidentally cancel out your deficit, making it impossible to lose weight.

This is why the best approach is to completely separate exercise from your calorie tracking.

The Right Way to Think About Exercise and Fat Loss

The primary purpose of exercise should not be to “earn” food, it should be for fitness, strength, and overall health.

• Use exercise to build muscle, get stronger, and improve endurance.
• Use MyFitnessPal strictly for tracking food intake and creating a calorie appropriate diet.

If you’re serious about losing fat efficiently, ignore MyFitnessPal’s exercise calorie feature and turn it off completely in the settings. This prevents the app from adjusting your daily calorie target based on workouts, keeping your intake consistent and predictable.

Instead of trying to “eat back” your exercise calories, stick to your pre-set calorie goal no matter how much you exercise. If you’re hungry after a workout, prioritise protein and fibre-rich foods rather than assuming you have extra calories to burn.

This single change makes a huge difference in fat loss success. It removes the guesswork, prevents overcompensation, and ensures your workouts contribute to better fitness without interfering with your diet.

Not Having an Exit Plan

One of the most overlooked aspects of calorie tracking is what happens after you reach your goal.

Most people start using MyFitnessPal with a clear objective in mind, such as losing weight, getting lean, or improving their eating habits. But very few think about what happens next.

Do you keep tracking your food forever? Do you stop tracking and hope for the best? How do you transition from logging everything to eating more intuitively without gaining the weight back?

This is where having an exit plan becomes essential.

Why You Can’t Track Forever (And Shouldn’t Want To)

Tracking calories is a tool, not a lifestyle. While it’s incredibly useful for learning about nutrition, portion sizes, and energy balance, it’s not meant to be a lifelong habit.

Long-term, you don’t want to be someone who can’t eat a meal without opening an app. You want to develop the skills and habits that allow you to maintain your results without constantly tracking numbers.

If you don’t have a plan for transitioning away from MyFitnessPal, you run the risk of either:

1. Stopping tracking suddenly and regaining weight because you haven’t learned how to manage portions intuitively.
2. Feeling “trapped” in calorie tracking forever because you’re afraid to stop, leading to anxiety around food.

How to Successfully Transition Away from Tracking

The goal isn’t to quit tracking overnight but to gradually build habits that allow you to maintain progress without needing MyFitnessPal every day.

Step 1: Practice Eyeballing Portions

One of the best skills you can develop is the ability to estimate portion sizes accurately without a scale or app.

If you’ve been tracking for a while, you already have a sense of how much 100g of chicken, 50g of oats, or a tablespoon of peanut butter looks like. Start testing yourself by guessing portions before weighing them and see how close you get.

Over time, you’ll get so good at this that you won’t need to weigh everything, you’ll be able to eat normally while staying within your calorie needs.

Step 2: Establish Consistent Meal Routines

People who maintain their weight without tracking tend to eat similar meals regularly.

By keeping your meals relatively consistent, you remove a lot of the guesswork. You don’t need to track if you already know that your go-to breakfast, lunch, and dinner keep you within your calorie range.

This doesn’t mean eating the same thing every day, but having a rough structure makes it much easier to stay on track without needing to log everything.

Step 3: Learn Which Foods Keep You Full and Satisfied

Not all calories are created equal when it comes to hunger and satiety.

Some foods, like lean proteins, fibrous vegetables, and whole grains, keep you feeling full for hours. Others, like processed snacks, sugary drinks, and refined carbs, spike your blood sugar, leave you craving more, and make it harder to stick to your goals.

If you want to maintain your results without tracking, focus on food choices that naturally regulate appetite and prevent overeating.

When you understand how different foods affect your hunger, you don’t need to track every calorie, because your body naturally balances itself out.

Ignoring Fiber and Micronutrients

Most people using MyFitnessPal focus only on calories and maybe macros, which makes sense since energy balance is the biggest driver of fat loss. But if you’re not paying attention to fibre and micronutrients, you could be hurting your results, energy levels, and overall health.

Low fibre intake often leads to:

• Increased hunger (because fibre keeps you full for longer)
• Slower digestion (which can cause bloating and constipation)
• Blood sugar spikes and crashes (leading to energy dips and cravings)

Micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are just as important. If you’re hitting your calorie goal but eating mostly processed, low-nutrient foods, you might experience fatigue, poor recovery, and weakened immune function.

How to Fix It:

• Set a daily fibre goal in MyFitnessPal. Aim for at least 25–35g of fibre per day from whole foods like vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains.
• Eat a variety of nutrient-dense foods instead of relying on the same meals every day.
• You can do some pretty basic micronutrient tracking with MyFitnessPal, which can help you to see if you are low in some key vitamins and minerals like iron, potassium, and magnesium.

Letting Weekends or “Cheat Days” Erase Your Deficit

You might be meticulously tracking from Monday to Friday, hitting your calorie goal perfectly, and staying consistent with workouts. But then the weekend hits, and suddenly, your food tracking becomes sloppy, or you allow yourself a “cheat meal” that turns into a full weekend of overeating.

This is one of the most common reasons why people stall in fat loss despite feeling like they’re doing everything right. A single day of uncontrolled eating can easily wipe out an entire week of progress.

Here’s what that might look like:

• Monday-Friday: You eat 500 calories under maintenance each day, creating a total weekly deficit of 2,500 calories (about 0.7 lbs of fat loss).
• Saturday: You go out for brunch, have a few drinks, and eat an extra 1,200 calories over maintenance.
• Sunday: You continue eating more than usual, adding another 1,500 extra calories.
• The net result for the week? Your total deficit is now only 200–300 calories for the week, barely enough for noticeable fat loss.

How to Fix It:

Instead of swinging between strict weekdays and excessive weekends, find a more balanced approach:

• Plan for indulgences instead of making them spontaneous. If you want to eat out, track your meal beforehand to stay within a reasonable calorie range.
• Use a weekly calorie target instead of a strict daily goal. This gives you the flexibility to eat a little more on weekends while staying in an overall deficit.
• Practice moderation on social outings. If you know you’re having a higher-calorie meal, adjust the rest of your day by focusing on lean proteins and vegetables to balance it out.

Not Logging Food When Eating Out at a Friend’s House or Social Event

It’s easy to track when you’re eating meals you’ve prepared yourself. But when you go to a friend’s house, a family gathering, or a party, many people don’t even try to log their food. They assume, “There’s no way to know exactly what’s in this, so I won’t even bother.”

This leads to huge underestimations of calorie intake, and if it happens frequently, it can completely stall progress.

How to Fix It:

Even if you can’t be 100% accurate, it’s always better to log something rather than nothing.

Here’s how to estimate meals when you don’t have exact numbers:

• Look for a similar meal in MyFitnessPal. For example, if you’re eating homemade lasagna, find a grocery store or chain restaurant lasagna entry and use that as a baseline.
• Use portion-size comparisons. A serving of protein is about the size of your palm, a serving of rice or pasta is roughly the size of your fist, and a tablespoon of butter or oil is about the size of your thumb.
• Err on the side of overestimating rather than underestimating. If you think a meal is around 600 calories, log it as 700 to be safe.

The goal isn’t perfect accuracy, it’s staying engaged with tracking even in situations where you don’t have control over ingredients or portions.

Not Adjusting Calories When Your Weight Changes

Your calorie needs aren’t static. If you start tracking and successfully lose weight, your body burns fewer calories than it did at a higher weight.

Many people continue eating the same initial calorie target they set months ago, even though their body now requires fewer calories to maintain the same level of deficit. If you have lost 10kg, you simply aren’t burning the same amount of calories any more. In fact, you are likely burning a lot less.

This can slow progress and lead to frustrating plateaus.

How to Fix It:

• Adjust your calorie intake every ~5kg lost. If your weight drops, recalculate your calories.
• Monitor progress and make small reductions when necessary. If your weight loss stalls for 2+ weeks, reduce daily intake by 100–200 calories and reassess.
• Avoid making extreme cuts too quickly. If you go from 2,000 calories straight to 1,400, you’ll experience excessive hunger, low energy, and muscle loss. Slow, incremental adjustments work best.

Getting Discouraged by Daily Weight Fluctuations

One of the biggest mental hurdles in tracking is seeing the scale fluctuate up and down, even when you’re doing everything right.

Many people weigh themselves in the morning, see a random increase, and panic, thinking they’ve suddenly gained fat overnight. This often leads to unnecessary frustration, discouragement, or even giving up entirely.

But the truth is, short-term weight fluctuations are completely normal and are usually caused by water retention, food volume, and even hormonal shifts, not actual fat gain.

How to Fix It:

• Weigh yourself daily, but focus on weekly averages. Don’t react to one-day changes; instead, look at the overall trend.
• Understand what affects scale weight. Eating more carbs or sodium, drinking more/less water, or having a late-night meal can temporarily increase weight, but it’s not fat gain.
• Track progress using other metrics. Take progress photos, measurements, and pay attention to how your clothes fit instead of relying solely on the scale.

The key to success is not letting daily fluctuations affect your mindset. Trust the long-term process and focus on consistency rather than short-term changes.

Fix These Mistakes and See Faster Results

Even if you’re tracking diligently, there are still hidden mistakes that can slow down your progress, cause frustration, and make fat loss feel way harder than it needs to be.

Many people feel frustrated with MyFitnessPal because they don’t realise they’re making these mistakes. But once you fix these small issues, tracking becomes easier, more effective, and far less frustrating.

By staying consistent, avoiding common pitfalls, and adjusting your approach as needed, you can get the most out of MyFitnessPal

Final Thoughts: How to Make MyFitnessPal Work for You

When used correctly, MyFitnessPal makes fat loss easier, not harder. But it’s not about blindly logging numbers, it’s about learning and developing skills that help you eat better for life.

Hopefully you now have the skills to get the most out of MyFitnessPal and can now go forward and actually get the results you desire. But if you need more help with your own nutrition, you can always reach out to us and get online coaching, or alternatively, you can interact with our free content, especially our free nutrition content.

If you want more free information on nutrition or training, you can follow us on Instagram, YouTube or listen to the podcast, where we discuss all the little intricacies of exercise and nutrition. You can always stay up to date with our latest content by subscribing to our newsletter.

Finally, if you want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider our Nutrition Coach Certification course, and if you want to learn to get better at exercise program design, then consider our course on exercise program design. We do have other courses available too. If you don’t understand something, or you just need clarification, you can always reach out to us on Instagram or via email.