Counting calories

Whether you want to bulk up or slim down, calories are crucial, and using an app like MyFitnessPal is the obvious way to track how many you're consuming. Here's how to get it right

- By Lucy Gornall

While the process can feel impossibly hard, the concept of either losing or gaining weight couldn’t be simpler. If you consume more calories than you burn, you will put on weight; if you burn more than you consume, you’ll lose it. Easy.

Of course, tracking those calories in a reliable fashion requires some attention to detail. Which is where a calorie tracking app like MyFitnessPal (MFP) can help. Undoubtedly the most renowned food-tracking app on the market, MFP has around 200 million users. And the concept is pretty straightforward: you build a profile, MyFitnessPal gives you a calorie and macro target, and by adding in the foods you eat each day, the aim is to hit this target in order to see results.

Naturally, though, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Many of us are using MyFitnessPal incorrectly, or may simply encounter problems. So we checked in with the experts to hone in on the errors that might be derailing your calorie-tracking efforts...

MyFitnessPal isn’t always 100% accurate…

If you type ‘brown bread’ into MFP, or ‘lasagne’, you’ll be inundated with brands and wide fluctuations in calorie counts. Different brands will add different ingredients to their seemingly similar foods. It may seem easier to pick the lowest-calorie option from the choices available, but that can lead to a flawed calorie count.