Does MyFitnessPal help you lose weight? It was a question asked by one of our readers on the Facebook page last week. So, I decided to discuss it a little bit to help you get rid of some extra pounds from your body.
Related Post: How Accurate is MyFitnessPal? A Complete Guide
MyFitnessPal is a calorie tracking app that helps you calculate your total calorie intake by tracking the food you eat. Once you have accurate calorie intake data, it will be extremely easy to plan your activities to lose weight.
Most food tracking apps fail to track calorie intake due to their inaccuracy and complicated user interface. On the other hand, MyFitnessPal consists of more than 5 million food items in their database and 350 exercises. Just enter each meal and quantity into the app, and it calculates the calorie intake automatically.
Additionally, when you drink juice or chips, just scan the barcode to add the data into your calorie intake chart. So, you do not need to search on its label to find the number of calories that it contains.
Does MyFitnessPal help you lose weight?
MyFitnessPal shows you how many calories you’re taking in and how many calories you’re burning, which helps you easily stay on track with your weight loss goals.
If you use this MyFitnessPal app and a MyFitnessPal compatible fitness tracker, it helps you lose weight faster and effectively.
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Ideally, men should take 2500 calories (about 200 minutes of running) per day to maintain their weight, whereas they should take only 2000 calories (about 160 minutes of running) per day to lose one pound of weight every week.
Similarly, a woman should take 1500 calories (about 120 minutes of running) per day to lose one pound of weight every week. Also, she should take at least 2000 calories to maintain her weight.
So now, the concept is clear.
To lose weight, you must restrict your calorie intake every day. Being said that it is not recommended to restrict the calorie intake to fewer than 1250 as this will take your body into starvation mode, and the body will start store fat in the body.
In the same way, if you take more than the recommended amount of calories per day, the body will start to gain weight. So, you should burn the extra calories to maintain weight. Obviously, you should burn more if you want to shed some extra pounds.
For example, if you are a man and take 2500 per day, you must burn an extra 500 calories to maintain the weight and burn more to lose weight.
And here is the formula for weight loss.
Calorie intake-Calorie Burn= Calorie Deficit
So, the net calorie intake should be “minus” at the end of the day to lose weight. It will be extremely easy if you are using MyFitnessPal to track food intake.
But to achieve your goal, that is weight loss; you must track your activities as well. Then only will you be able to track how many calories you burn each day?
But MyFitnessPal does not track your activities; as a result, it cannot measure how many calories you burn each day. However, the MyFitnessPal calorie tracking app helps you connect it with a fitness tracker or smartwatch to track your activities and the amount of calories burned. But not all activity trackers are not compatible with MyFitnessPal.
If you use a MyFitnessPal, you can see calorie intake data and calorie burned data on the MyFitnessPal itself. So, you do not need to switch between MyFitnessPal and other activity tracking app to see your stats.
When you couple MyFitnessPal with a compatible fitness tracker, you have all the powerful tools to track your net calorie intake each day.
The process of synchronizing a smartwatch with MyFitnessPal is easy, and if you need any assistance, the below video will walk you through the process.
Now everything is in your hand. Now you must restrict your calorie intake and burn more calories to achieve your weight loss goal.
According to the WHO, one should do at least 75minutes of vigorous or 150 minutes (about 2 and a half hours) of moderate exercise to maintain optimal cardiac health. But if you want to lose weight, you must do more work out to burn more calories.
Most people quit their fitness and weight loss journey mid-way due to demotivation or lack of a solid goal. But MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, Garmin, etc., have some motivational programs that allow you to stay motivated by joining the community of similar-minded people around you.
These groups allow you to set a goal and allow you to challenge other community members. This type of activity helps you to keep motivated to achieve your fitness tracking goals.
If you are willing to upgrade to MyFitnessPal premium, you can enjoy some advanced features like recipes, nutrient dashboards, Food Analysis, etc. You can MyFitnessPal premium plan for one month and cancel it if you do not want to continue before the trial period ends to save the money.
Conclusion
So, I think that, as of now, you already have the answer to the question, “Does MyFitnessPal help you Lose Weight?”. As I said earlier, MyFitnessPal is a powerful tool that helps you lose weight only if you use it in the right way. Also, the accuracy and performance increase further if you connect it with a fitness tracker that works with MyFitnessPal.
If you have any further queries or thoughts on this, please feel free to comment below.
