MyFitnessPal Keeping Me on Track
|Since the first week of January, I’ve been trying to lose my Holiday weight-gain. One way to get to my goal weight is to log my food intake, using the App called MyFitnessPal — perfect for keeping me honest. What I didn’t realize is that MyFitnessPal can also be used to log my exercise, converting it to calories burned, which are then given back to me — i.e., added back to my day’s calorie allowance. Needless to say, I’ve been even more conscientious than usual about racking up lots of workout time.
Based on my goal of losing a pound a week, MyFitnessPal allots me a measly 1200 calories — very hard to stay within that limit. But, today for example, I did 1/2 hour of walking at 3.5 mph on the treadmill plus an hour of Pilates, and magically another 236 calories showed up as available. This gives me license to do something called ‘eating your exercise’. . .
But, the weight has been s-l-o-o-o-o-w to come off, and I just realized the flaw in the practice of ‘eating your exercise.’ When creating my profile, I told MyFitnessPal that I considered myself to be ‘active’, so obviously some element of my exercise is already taken into consideration in my 1200 calorie stipend.
I guess it’s time to stop trying to game the system. No more trying to fool myself into thinking I’m dieting while I’m sneaking a portion of lemon bar, chocolate, or muffin into my night-time snacking. But for sure I’m going to amp up the exercise in February to better my chances that those extra pounds are well and fully permanently (?) ejected.
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