A review of six months at MyFitnessPal

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Vivikare

August 6th, exactly six months ago today, was my first day tracking at MyFitnessPal (if you’re on it as well and want to add me, go ahead!).

Since then, it seems that my whole life has changed. I’ve already written a lot about everything that has changed since last summer in my review of 2011, so I will not repeat everything again, but I want to focus on my experience with MyFitnessPal instead.

I remember hearing about MyFitnessPal from other weight loss bloggers and as I was really unhappy with Weight Watchers at this point, I decided to give it a go. I installed the MyFitnessPal app on my iPhone and signed up.

I kept my Weight Watchers online membership for the remainder of August but then canceled it, and never looked back. I spent so much money on Weight Watchers for over a year and a half, and in the end, I weighed more than I did when I signed up. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming Weight Watchers for this, I know I would have lost weight if I’d actually stuck to the program, but it just wasn’t working for me anymore.

At first, MyFitnessPal was a bit daunting for me. I was annoyed with the huge amount of (duplicate) database entries and the fact that searching for ‘banana’ would not bring up a plain banana as the first result but a banana smoothie. I also had to enter a lot of foods that I eat seeing as the app (and website) is not available in German or very popular here, so German foods are hard to find in the database. But, once I got past that, I loved it.

MyFitnessPal is a simple but fantastic tool for tracking calories and macro nutrients, allowing you to lose weight healthily without doing a diet. (By the way, I do think that this is also possible with Weight Watchers.) In my opinion, that is the best way to lose weight and keep it off in the long run. I am so glad not to be on a diet, no foods are off limits for me, I just make sure that the majority of my calorie intake is made up of healthy food.

I think MyFitnessPal so easy to use, I love having a website and an app to enter food (something that I was missing with WW seeing as they took until December 2011 to come out with an iPhone app in Germany), and I love the support network that it comes with. I have met a bunch of great people on MyFitnessPal who support me every day, and even a couple of good friends.

I think that without them, I would not have done as well, as they keep me accountable day in and day out. I know that I have made huge progress in exercising will power but I do think that there have been a few moments that I probably would have eaten a few things if I hadn’t known that I’d have to log them and answer for them later. Of course, always provided that I log honestly and don’t leave off anything, but honesty to myself and others is a prerequisite for losing weight, in my opinion.

Six months ago, I doubted that I would ever make it this far. I didn’t really see myself weighing quite a bit under 80 kg, well, because I had never managed to get there on any of the other attempts since I first lost weight in 2005/06. I didn’t think I’d be running 10 km any time soon. And I would have never dreamed of becoming a person who would go out for a run in -9C. In a way, I have changed so much in the past six months. But I am still me. I did this.

After six months of logging at MyFitnessPal, I have lost 20.7 kg (45.6 lbs). My BMI has gone from 33.7 (obese) to 26.54 (overweight), and I only have another 4.5 kg to lose before I am no longer overweight. I have dropped a couple of sizes and I have become so much fitter and stronger, working out 4–5 times a week on average. I am a much happier person now than I was in August, I feel a lot more comfortable in my body and more self-confident. I am more active and a lot healthier. I am not giving MyFitnessPal credit for that, as I did this, so I think I deserve the credit for my weight loss – but I do think that MyFitnessPal is a great tool that made it all possible. I don’t think I would have done as well without it.

Goals for 2012

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Vivikare

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I am not a big fan of new year’s resolutions, because let’s face it, most are forgotten by the time February rolls around, but nevertheless I have a few goals for this year that I am going to continue to work on.

Kick my insulin resistance: I have a little over a month left of taking the Metformin. After that, I am on my own with the weight loss. I am positive that I will keep losing weight. Six months later, after keeping off the weight and continuing my healthy diet, I am going to take the OGTT again to find out if my insulin resistance is gone. I am confident that my hard work will pay off and the IR will be gone by August.
Reach my goal weight: I have a little over 13 kg to lose and I would love to get to my goal weight within the first half of 2012. I am not going to stress over it, though. If it takes longer, then that’s okay too. I am confident that 2012 will be the year I finally make it to 65 kg.
Continue a healthy diet: I have improved my diet so much over the past few months. Though I have phases in which I slack off a little, such as lately, I am going to keep up my healthy eating. Even though it takes a certain amount of dedication, time, and planning, it is worth it. I know how important it is for my health in general and my insulin resistance in specific.
Keep up the running: I am going to keep running. I want to run at least 2-3 10k races in 2012 and start building up to longer distances as well as improve my pace. During the winter, my main focus is to maintain my endurance and once the weather improves, I want to up my running and follow a training plan again.
Get fitter: I have worked hard on my fitness level, and have managed to average 3-5 workouts a week throughout the past five months. For my standards, this is quite frankly outstanding. I want to keep this up and become even fitter and stronger. I feel so much better and everything is so much easier when I am fit.
Work on my confidence and self image: I feel so much better about myself than I did five months ago. I am more confident and I like my reflection in the mirror a lot better, I am even at a point where I almost like my body, but there are still plenty of issues I need to work on. I am more confident, but overall, I am still not a very confident person and when I allow myself, I get consumed by negative feelings about myself. I don’t think this is an issue that will magically disappear once I am “thin” so it is something I need and want to work on.
Eliminate bad habits: I successfully managed to stop biting my nails and haven’t since August. I don’t get the urge to bite anymore, either, so I am confident that I have kicked this habit for good. There are a couple of other bad habits I want to work on in 2012, though. One is to cut down on diet coke. I have been working on this on and off for months, and I have had weeks that I did quite well, but lately I have been back to drinking a lot of it again, especially at work. Another is to cut down on the amount of chocolate and candy I eat. Also something that was much better a few months ago, as I have been slacking off a little. I am never going to cut out chocolate or candy for good, but I need to do better than I have lately.

What are your goals for 2012?

A year in review

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Vivikare

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
- Margaret Thatcher

2011 was a year of ups and downs for me, in terms of weight loss and health. I had lost quite a bit of weight between August and December 2010 when I started my first full-time job after university in mid-January. After that, I quickly gained back all the weight I had lost and a few kilos on top of that.

In June, I found out that I had PCOS – explaining all the symptoms I had been experiencing since I went off birth control in October 2010 (a very irregular cycle, acne). About a month after finding out about the PCOS, I was also diagnosed with insulin resistance. While I knew I was to blame for most of my weight gain, i.e., my lack of activity and eating too much junk food at work and at home, the insulin resistance must’ve played a role as well.

August is when I everything changed. I started taking Metformin, and I decided that if I was going to take a medication like that, I would do my best that I wouldn’t have to take it for long. I decided to try something new and signed up for MyFitnessPal. Probably one of the best decisions I made in 2011. At the end of August, I canceled my Weight Watchers Online subscription, and I never looked back.

Since August, I have been using MyFitnessPal to count calories, journal my food and my exercise. And I’ve made a few new friends too. I have come to really appreciate the support network that MFP, or rather other MFP members, provide and I love the clean interface of both the MFP website and the iPhone app.

I also had two appointments with a nutritionist in the fall. She gave me some very helpful tips and also reassured me that I was already doing very well. My 3-month check-up, roughly three months after I got my RI diagnosis and started taking the Metformin, went very well, and I got praised by my endocrinologist for having lost so much weight already.

It’s been nearly five months since I joined MFP and started exercising regularly again. Five months since I turned my life around.

On August 3, I weighed 97.4 kg. Probably my highest weight of all times. Since then, I’ve lost 19 kg – putting me at 78.4 kg at my most recent weigh-in this morning, my lowest weight of recent years.

At some point in the fall, I set myself a goal of getting to under 80 kg by the end of the year. I made it. At my last weigh-in of 2011, I weighed 78.6 kg.

I also started running again and have made huge progress since then. I started fresh with Couch to 5K in August and ran a 5k race in October. Unlike all the other times I had done C25K, I didn’t stop running, though, when I finished the program this time, but I kept running following a 10K plan by Jane Wake. Two months later, I ran my first 10K (race) ever.

Now that 2012 has begun, I can say that 2011 was a really successful year for me. After a rough patch – that lasted 7 months, hah – I turned it all around and I can honestly say that I am in a much better place now, in terms of weight, fitness, physical and mental health.

Here’s to continuing on this journey and making 2012 even better!