In this video I give you six quick tips to make entering food into MyFitnessPal faster and easier.
This is a follow on video from another I filmed showing how to set up your calories and macros and customize your goals. You can watch that one here.
TIP #1: THE SWIPE
The first tip is to use “The Swipe.”
When you log into a brand new day on MyFitnessPal, you are going to see something that says “Add Yesterday’s Meal” and all you do is swipe across your screen to add the meal from the following day.
This is a great feature if you are someone who often eats the same food regularly for a certain meal. For example, I eat the same breakfast pretty much everyday so I simply swipe it in every time I complete my diary.
TIP #2: COPY FROM DATE
Copy From Date is another quick and smart feature similar to the swipe. If you select the three little dots when you go to enter a meal you are going to see the option to “Copy From Date.”
Simply select the date and meal you want to copy and you can very quickly fill up your diary. Again this is a really convenient feature if you are someone who regularly eats the same meals. This is how I do most of my entries and it makes entering into my diary super fast.
TIP #3: QUICK ADD
In the same place you find Copy From Date, you’ll find something that says “Quick Add.” This is a useful feature when you know the calories of a full meal but you don’t want to enter in each individual ingredient.
Quick Add is useful if you subscribe to food delivery services – like the meal kits with recipes for the entire week or fitness meals that are done for you. You’ll be given the total calories for those meals and in that case I would just use Quick Add rather than try to break down each individual ingredient when entering into your diary.
Quick Add is also a good feature if you are eating out and know the calories of the meal or can estimate them. Some restaurants list the calories on their menus which means you can just “quickly add” them using this feature. If you are more advanced you may be able to enter an approximate amount of calories if you don’t have the exact calories. Even if you don’t get the calories perfectly right it’s still better to guess and enter something rather than enter nothing at all.
TIP #4: SAVE MEALS
MyFitnessPal has two options to save your meals – you can create recipes or save meals. I prefer the Save Meal option. All you do is load everything in your diary as per normal and then hit those three little dots again. From there you’ll be able to “Save As Meal” and name it. The next time you have that meal you’ll be able to find it really quickly under the Meal tab.
TIP #5: VERIFIED ENTRIES
What you may not know is that anyone can enter food into MyFitnessPal so there are a lot of errors and incomplete entries. One of the most common things you’ll see is that foods will have the calories and the macros but all the other information is missing (ie. sugar, fiber, etc).
One way to ensure you get a more complete entry is to choose a verified entry – recognizable by the green tick beside it. Unfortunately even verified entries can be incomplete so you may want to double check before adding it to your diary but in general you should find better entries if you look for the green tick.
TIP #6: ADD IN ADVANCE
This final tip is not a feature of the app but rather an overall better way to set up the app for quicker entries. This idea actually came from one of my clients who signed up for my Premium Coaching Program that includes calorie counting.
She messaged me to let me know that she had spent a day populating the app with all the foods she regularly eats (ie. by walking through her kitchen and scanning in lots of food). So, while one day of her diary was going to look weird and out of balance, when she started to track properly she would have a much easier time because most of her regular foods would already be in the app.
I love this idea of populating the app if you are new to it because it can be overwhelming and slow to track your calories at first. If you can make a new habit easier you’ll be more likely to stick with it!
Thanks for watching! If you want to watch more videos check out my YouTube channel here. Don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there.
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Learn more about my Premium Coaching Program here.
Learn more about my Meal Plan that takes care of calorie counting for you here.
