How to use MyFitnessPal

Bethany Montgomery
Jul 2, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Jul 8

MyFitnessPal is a digital food journal that allows you to accurately track your calories, macronutrients, water intake, and exercise.

You might be wondering, why track your food at all? If you have any health or fitness goals, it’s important to know how much you’re consuming, both in terms of macro- and micronutrients. But MyFitnessPal isn’t just for weight loss. I’ve personally used it during times when I was dealing with health issues. Because I had a detailed food log, I could look back and see exactly what I was eating at the time and consider whether my diet might have played a role. There's also a notes section, which I use to track how I'm feeling or document any dietary changes. If I experience symptoms like headaches or bloating, I jot them down; it’s been helpful when trying to identify patterns or triggers.

Getting Started

How do you get started? Download the app from your app store or go to www.myfitnesspal.com.

Goals

Once signed in, you need to look over your goals.

Click More.
Click Goals.
Under Nutrition Goals, you can add your goals for calories and macros.
Adjust your goals.

Here you will enter your calorie and macro goals. A calorie is a measure of energy. Macros make up calories in the form of fat, carbs, and protein. Start with protein. This number should be your ideal weight. For some people, this is how much you weigh; for others, it could be how much you want to weigh or what is ideal for your body.

Log Your Food

Once you have entered your goals, you can start logging your food. To find food:

Click on your diary.
Click Add Food.
Search for the food you are looking for.
Click the food to make sure all macros are listed and it looks correct - the green check beside an item means it's certified correct. Whenever possible, choose these.
Click the checkmark in the right corner to add to your diary.
Calories and macros will update as you log.

If you're just starting your health journey, log your food for a few days just to see how many calories you're eating and what types of calories. Are you overeating carbs or fat and not eating enough protein? Is your sugar intake through the roof? This can be eye-opening.

What About Eating Out?

Logging calories doesn't mean you can only cook and never enjoy a meal out. There are many restaurants listed on MyFitnessPal. Again, look for the green check, which means the food is verified. If you can't find what you are looking for, you can always add the items separately. For instance, if you ate a taco, log the ingredients separately to get as close as possible.

Once you start logging, it will save your frequently used foods to make it easier.

How to Create Your Own Food

If you make a meal, you can create a recipe by adding all of the ingredients and specifying how many servings. It will also save the recipe so you can use it again. If you are like me and change the recipe up occasionally, it will allow you to edit the ingredients at any time.

Click More.
Click on My Meals, Recipes, and Foods.
Click Create a Recipe.
Choose to add from the web or enter manually - I normally enter mine manually.
Add a title for the recipe.
Add the number of servings.
Start to type out your ingredients - I normally type one of the ingredients and then add them using the next step.
Click the arrow at the top right to move to the next step.
Make sure what you entered matches what you want.
Click Add Ingredients.
From here, you can type the food like normal or use the scan icon at the bottom to scan the barcode.

For demo purposes, I logged a recipe consisting of chicken and broth to show you how it works.

MyFitnessPal offers a variety of features beyond food tracking. You can log your water intake, track workouts, explore community blog articles, and more. One important note: we choose not to log exercise because MyFitnessPal will automatically adjust your daily calories to account for it. If you already have a set nutrition plan, adding those extra calories can throw you off track.

As you start logging your meals, you’ll gain a better understanding of how many calories are in the foods you eat. Over time, you’ll begin to recognize which foods are primarily fats, carbs, or proteins. Plus, the more you log, the more intuitive serving sizes will become.

Happy logging!