❌ MyFitnessPal is NOT your Pal ❌
(Stick with me until the end, ya’ll!)
There is a chance that the way you are tracking food right now isn’t working for a reason.
True story 🙋🏻♀️
Because a real “pal” (aka: Coach) knows you, your body, your history of dieting, your fitness program, how you’re sleeping, when your cycle starts, etc… MyFitnessPal (or any other Food Tracking App) doesn’t know YOU.
Food Tracking Apps also create your recommendations based purely off of an equation. The reality is that humans are way more complicated than a math formula. Hello hormones, said almost every female. And oftentimes the estimated targets they give you are WAY TOO LOW, which is why you often don’t see results (metabolism down-regulates due to less calories).
At Coaching with Abby (CWA), we help you customize your nutrition + macros based on where you currently ARE and what your GOALS are. We also take into consideration your biofeedback (energy, stress, sleep, hunger, performance, hormones, libido, etc) and work WITH YOU to make modifications and adjustments based on feedback.
Check out the example below:
I’m 40 years old
5’5″ and 140 pounds
I get ~11k steps/day
Workout 4-5x/week
🎯Here is what MFP recommends for both weight loss + maintenance:
Weight Loss:
- 1200 calories
- 60g Protein
- 150g Carbs
- 40g Fat
- Note: I selected losing 2 pounds/week. There was no “WARNING” that losing 2 pounds really isn’t healthy or sustainable.
- 🚫 Eek, I might literally starve eating 1200 calories!!
Maintenance:
- 1850 calories
- 92g Protein
- 229g Carbs
- 61g Fat
- 🚫 Eek, for an active female with a good amount of muscle… this is NOT a lot of calories!!
🟢 Here are my actual Maintenance needs 🟢
- 2600 calories
- 165g Protein
- 320g Carbs
- 75g Fat
The result… I feel satisfied and have more flexibility with my diet, get to eat chocolate almost daily, I’m crushing my workouts, and seeing improvements in body composition. I’ll take 2600 calories over 1850 calories any dang day!
That’s right! It’s almost 1.5x what MFP estimated.
And to be honest, 2600 calories is about 200-300 calories MORE than what I even predicted for myself. This is the power of actually determining your own maintenance needs firsthand vs going solely off an online calculator!
So how did I arrive at these numbers?
- I determined a rough baseline for maintenance based on TDEE calculators
- Tracked my food consistently and looked for patterns
- Measured my bodyweight daily/weekly… the scale wasn’t going up consistently, despite me slowly increasing my calories… so I continued to push my maintenance needs.
- Assessing my biofeedback
Maintenance is defined as how many calories you require to *maintain* your current weight in the absence of STRESS (ie: managing stress, sleep, workouts, menstrual cycle, etc).
Chances are your *actual* maintenance SHOULD override MFP or any other food tracking App. Additionally, you should be mindful about your own personal biofeedback. What is your body telling you? If you’re hungry + craving all the time, coupled with moodiness, poor menstrual cycles, bad sleep, etc… you most likely aren’t eating enough.
