I have been using the myfitnesspal app as the main platform for my project. Its main purpose is to track caloric intake and expenditure. Being three weeks into using the app, I thought this would be a good time to give my initial thoughts on strengths and weaknesses of the platform. Hopefully this will be useful information for anyone considering using this type of app.
Home-screen View
Strengths:
- Easy to navigate and user friendly – both the app and website are easy to navigate. Tabs and pages that you use most often are easy to find and learn how to use.
- The website and app sync immediately.
- Ability to connect to a variety of fitness watches to track steps and calculate caloric expenditures.
- Easy to navigate food and exercise diary – as you can see below it gives you a breakdown of the foods you have eaten and gives you updates on your daily progress. It is very easy to add and search for foods.
- Food inventory – I don’t think I’ve found a food yet that hasn’t already been entered with accurate nutritional information.
- Breakdowns of nutrients – options to select which nutrients you want broken down and displayed (i.e. carbs, fats, sugar, sodium…).
- Graphs and visuals to track progress – available with Premium subscription at what I thought was a reasonable price.
- When you submit each day’s diary it tells you how much you would weigh in the future if every day were like that day – this is a great motivator to stick with your plan and goals
Weaknesses:
- Unit conversions – many food items are entered in grams or ounces. I usually picture amounts in cups when estimating how much I ate (no, I don’t measure everything precisely!)
- When entering strength training workouts it asks you to enter specific exercises that you did. This isn’t practical when doing a 30 minute workout that might include 15+ different exercises. I have been entering my strength training workouts under the cardiovascular as a result.
There is so much more to this app that I have to explore. There is a community section and blog section that I have no explored at all. For a first time user, I am very impressed with it so far!
Chris. That was a great overview of the strengths and weaknesses of My Fitness Pal. My husband has signed up for Noom and he religiously records calorie intake and exercise. In the past I have used the Weight Watchers app to track food and exercise. Of course there is a membership fee for both Noom and WW. Your update encourages me to check out the free app – My Fitness Pal. Good luck with your learning project.
Chris – I have been using my fitness pal as well, and couldn’t agree more with your strength and weaknesses analysis. The food/unit conversion feature is the most frustrating for me, almost to the point of quitting using the app – frustrating! On the other hand, I really like when you submit a day of eating, it gives you a breakdown of where your progress would be after each day – I saw it as positive reinforcement!
Bret
Hi Chirs, I love that you took the time to detail some of your thoughts on the app. I also use my fitness pal and I agree that the unit conversion is frustrating!! Are you using the free version only, or have you upgraded to the paid option? From what I understand the paid option has some extra features for nutrition breakdown of what you are eating each day.
Chris** whoops sorry!
I am using the upgraded version right now. It does have a lot of extra features, many of which I have not explored yet. Right now I am more focused on the number of calories I am intaking and expending. As I reach and surpass my weight loss goal, and switch my focus to reducing fat loss, I do plan on looking more at tracking specific nutrients etc…
Thanks for sharing these strengths and weakness of the platform. Really cool how it gives you a breakdown of the foods you have eaten and updates the daily progress. My wife has been looking for a fitness app that will track these sorts of things. I will have to share My Fitness Pal with her. I was wondering if it would be hard to find and add foods, but sounds like it has a great inventory. I’m wondering if you reached out to the company if they have thought of possible changes or options for the unit conversions. I wonder if they had enough customer feedback if they would look at providing some options for grams, ounces, cups etc.
I haven’t reached out to the company. Based on what I have seen, I think the inventory consists of what users have added themselves. Many entries vary in the units they have entered. It leads me to believe that users can add foods and use whatever unit they are familiar with. I have done lots of cross referencing and checking, and it seems that the vast majority are very accurate.