Tag Archives: MyFitnessPal

Ultimate Guide to Storing Fresh Produce

Black Banana left in Fridge

Black Banana left in Fridge via WikiPedia.

I have to admit, I’m not great at eating fresh vegetables, more so than I am at fruit. Getting the vegetables in isn’t usually too bad as I keep an array of frozen veg in the chiller, and various microwavable vegetables in the fridge.

Knowing what to store, where, isn’t always easy. We’ve all made the mistake of putting a banana in to the fridge and seen what happens (look left). Often the banana in fine on the inside but the skin doesn’t look great.

Some produce loves the fridge, Others love the sunlight, others just fine on the counter top. The odd one needs a little prep like a brocolli with a spray of water or avacado with a little oil.

I came across this chart a week or so ago by MyFitnessPal and honestly, I think its amazing.

My love of printing Cheat Sheets is already established, I think this one is being added to the fridge door to remind me.

The article also covers some other tips, such as paper bagging fruit with certain apples so speed up the ripening process, so check out the article as well as the infographic.

All-in-One Guide to Storing Fresh Produce by MyFitnessPal

All-in-One Guide to Storing Fresh Produce by MyFitnessPal

Infographic by MyFitnessPal.

MyFitnessPal Maybe Listens

A while ago I posted a few shortfalls of myfitnesspal, and I also wrote to MyFitnessPal with the issues. The main issues were, the way it tracked water. Where you had to physically go to the drop down menu every day and choose “add water” then scroll down to actually add water.

MyFitnessPal Water

MyFitnessPal Water

To make the water show you had to bring up the menu to the right with “Add Water”, “Add Note” etc, which would make the water counter and the “+ Add Water” appear.

The other issue I pointed out were the tracking of Sodium and Salt. The app fails to differentiate between Sodium and Salt. It may also be that the people entering the data didn’t calculate the difference. This means a packet of Biltong which has 2g of Salt is assumed to be 2,000mg of Sodium, where it is actually 800mg Sodium. This means you are always going over your suggested Sodium limit, when in reality you simply aren’t.

You can mitigate this by altering your goal to a maximum 5,500mg, on assumption its ALL salt, which is about 2,300mg sodium. I have set mine to 4,000mg which allows most of the sodium to be incorrectly assumed as salt and some to the correctly identified as sodium. If you are aiming for low sodium, I would probably leave it at the default 2,300mg and accept it as being sodium.

I however noticed about a week to 10 days ago, the “+ Add Water” and Tracker has been permanently enabled making it easier to add and track water… sadly the salt/sodium issue still exists.

There is however some hope, and I’ll message them again in a month or so.

As a side note, if you want to convert Salt -> Sodium or Sodium -> Salt, an easy method is Sodium -> Salt just Divide by 2.5 or Salt -> Sodium multiply by 2.5.

Here is a quick chart with some useful conversions and information on it.

Salt Sodium Equivelent Advice
1g 400mg A pinch of salt.
1.25g 500mg Quarter of a Teaspoon. Heart, Lung & Blood Ass. Min. Amount.
1.5g 600mg A big pinch of salt.
2g 800mg Low Sodium Diet Suggestion.
3g 1,200mg Half Teaspoon.. Diabetic Max. Suggestion.
4.25g 1,800mg 1/4 Tablespoon.
5g 2,000mg Recommended Target Zone.
6g 2,400mg 1 Teaspoon. Max Recommended Amount.
8.5g 3,600mg 1/2 Tablespoon. UK Average Comsumption.
9g 3,800mg US Average Comsumption
12g 4,800mg 2 Teaspoons.
17g 6,800mg 1 Tablespoon.

Its common sense but still worth mentioning, when a recipe calls for a “Teaspoon” of salt, if it makes 6 portions, you need to think each one will contain only 1g salt / 400mg sodium not 6g.

Its also worth mentioning when you have sweated a lot, like after a good hours work out, you may need a little sodium on those days, but you should research the appropriate amounts yourself.

I’m going to message MFP again and push the Sodium issue. I suspect its going to be a huge task, since their whole database will need differentiating. I have been there before, the longer you leave it, the bigger and the harder the task becomes.

** 3,200 kcal is an increase for heavy training days not my general count.

Nutritional Macros

It seems so peculiar posting my health stuff and everything else in one place. I need to move my photos over to here as well but its awkward knowing what to move or just start from fresh.

I’m working on changing my daily calorie (kcal not just cal) intake as I’m changing my work out routine. Its so much harder than I thought. Normally I keep it around 30/30/40 on proteins side, but wanting to up ones total calorie content for increased expenditure produced insane results.

MyFitnessPal Short Falls

I enrolled the MyFitnessPal app to try and help, but it has its quirks…

  1. Doesn’t count calories of strength exercises.
  2. Doesn’t by default track water/liquid (but can be added per day)
  3. Can’t sync with built-in phone pedometers.
  4. Can’t adjust food, like where I order breaded chicken (only high protein option at the time) and remove the coating.
  5. Bundles fibre as a carb, but not a biggie.
  6. Doesn’t allow custom weights for lots of things.

Saying that on balance its a good guide and tracker. Point 6 above, if you can do basic maths you can enter 0.5 and 0.25 into the portion to artificially create a custom weight of food.

Bad Habits

The app has revealed a few bad habits. The biggest being portion control, especially down to the size of my bowl. Breakfast when I have ready oats, I didn’t realise just how carb heavy it were. Another example is the bit of dark chocolate I have mid work out , often isn’t being taken mid work out, its being taken once home, and not only gym days.

Its made me more aware of time keeping, I really wish the app would keep track of the times things were eaten or drank. The reminders help a little.

Its also shown my protein intake is about 75-100 grams short, while carbs are 100-120g over. I’m not sure if the figures are accurate and some days I have to mentally adjust for the removal of coatings, not having sauces, etc.

Anyway, Moving to 25/30/45(protein high) is proving impossible without going over on one of the other macros unless I make everything from scratch which isn’t possible, I need to find a way to buy off the shelf and stick within margins.

On a side note, water and cardio are evil.