Road Fan

I've been using My Fitness Pal on my iPhone, and for the fifth time it has randomly lost my password, and the solution has been to reset it. But when I do so it seems to start a new account that downloads my base data from many moons ago, and cannot find my premium status. I'm sick of it and need to find out what calorie counters work well for iPhone. What do you folks like and find to be robust?

TrojanHorse

MyFitnessPal works on my iPhone, no issues at all. Sorry! I just use the free one though.

kingston 

I don't use it anymore, but I lost 50 pounds several years ago with calorific.

sdmc530

same here, I really like this app. I use iPhone as well and have never had an issue in two years.

jpescatore

In my experience, all of the exercise-based calorie counters are way high in estimating calories. I have found the free version of Loseit to be a good way to enter food and get an accurate calorie count and use the "moderate" level of the exercise entries to get a realistic (to me, anyway) estimate of calories burned for various forms of exercise.

Years ago I was part of a test that put you on an exercycle and measure a bunch of stuff, not quite a VO2max test but similar. Prior to that I'd been using an estimate of 40 Kcal per mile for my average cycling speed, which came from other studies. The test came in at something like 38 Kcal/mile, so whenever I enter bike miles into something like loseit, I use the level that seems to match 40/mile. Some rides are harder and burn more, some are easier and burn less but that average works for me. The equipment at the gym and most of those online calculators come in way higher than that.

CraigMBA

I use the free version of MFP to track calories ONLY. It works great for that. The activity tracker is worse than useless at estimating work done. Select the most sedentary option there if you must use it.

If you had a, say, power meter attached to your bike you could measure exactly how many kilo joules you expended, and add that to your base calories, if you were maintaining weight. If you are trying to cut weight, you would want to remove those from your base calories, and continue to fuel what you've expended.

If I sound like a broken record on this kilojules thing, I've had a power meter for several years and never knew it was there. I had an awful time estimating how much I burned during my workout or in an event, which led me to alternately under eating (leading to poor on bike performance or maybe bonk) or over eating (self explanatory). Its super helpful to know how much you are trying to eat if you can get a gauge on how much you are going to use.

CraigMBA

My ride today came in at 47.5kcal/mile, but it had 2000 feet of climb and 40 miles of vicious wind (1900 kcal total). The same ride yesterday I had 1000 in at mile 16, but only used 350 on the way back. I tried sitting in the drops more today, and saved 200 calories by getting myself in a more aero position.

For a flat course your numbers are probably real close.

jpescatore

Pretty much all of my rides are loops, so the climbing is offset by the downhills. Sometimes the ups are long and steep and the downs are just numerous little dips, but some rides it is the reverse - I think it generally averages out, just like headwinds. (sign up for MyWindsock.com and see!)

The 40/mile is also for a 15mph pace and probably not for riding on the drops - though I kinda feel like my efficiency goes down as much as my aerodynamics go up, as my knees bump into my ample gut 140 times per minute...

jpescatore

Another thought: even at a conservative 40 cal/mile, a 60 mile ride equals 2,400 calories - which seems like a lot. But if you add up the calories you might be ingested just on the bike and at rest stops, not even counting lunch, you might end up consuming a lot of that before you even eat more for lunch and dinner than normally!

Three 20 oz bottles of normal (not low cal) sports drink and 3 energy bars gets you pretty close to 1000 calories consumed right there.

CraigMBA

Yesterday I drank two bottles (180 calories each) and ate two Clif bars (250 calories each), leaving me 900 in the hole. That's about all the carbohydrates I can metabolize in the period I was out before I feel sick.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard someone on the Trainer Road podcast say they shoot for whatever they are going to use in the ride = ride fuel + breakfast. These people are super lean, and are not trying to drop 40 pounds of body fat, but the principal still applies.

Another is to start doing the work, and fuel your body like you are doing the work. The body composition you want follows. In my experience this is true. But its easy to get sidetracked if you work in an office where there are an unending source of calories in the breakroom, or you are married or living with someone who has a prediliction to fill the refrigerator with high fat/calorie dense foods that get "added" to what you are dieting.

jpescatore

Unless you are really pushing speed/power/heartrate, there is no need to have what you consume during a ride come close to what you burn, let alone equal. There is a big difference between doing races or Trainer Road workouts and doing recreational or touring type rides.

At 15 mph, 40 cal/mile works out to 600 calories per hour burned. The recommendations for how much carbohydrate you should consume during a ride say 30 - 60 grams per hour, because you body can't process it any faster than that. At 4 calories per gram of carbohydrates, that works out to 120 - 240 calories per hour while you are consuming 600 calories per hour - and that is good!

Eating during a ride isn't to replenish calories, it is to replenish the energy stores in your body - when needed. Most of us Clydesdales carry around a lot of extra energy in all that extra weight we are carrying. At lower heart rates and lower speeds, fat is used as an energy source if nothing else is provided.

If you followed those guidelines for a 4 hour in the saddle, 60 mile ride, you would take in 480 - 960 calories while burning around 2400 - and have plenty of fuel for the ride! Racers going much faster have different math because they are burning faster than could ever be supplied by fat stores, but somewhere there was an article that showed what they actually eat on the bike for a 130 mile Alpine stage in the Tour de France and it was pretty close to what most recreational riders eat during a moderately hilly metric century! But the elite racers eat a whole lot more before and after!

kingston 

For medium length rides of moderate intensity like a 4 hour 60 mile ride, you shouldn't need nearly that much food. When I was trying to lose weight and even now that I have lost a lot of weight, I consume just enough calories to keep from bonking, which isn't that much at moderate intensity. As you say, 250-300 cal/hr is the absolute max. I'm normally below 100 cal/hr until the rides get longer than 6 hours, and zero if the rides are less than 2-3 hours.

NomarsGirl

Just loaded My Fitness Pal. I won't lie to it, so it is keeping me from overeating. I want something else now, but it's not dinner time yet and it isn't allowing me very many calories so I need to save them. Stupid app doing what it is supposed to do .... (grumble, grumble).

I'm not actually hungry, so I guess I'll just have a glass of water and hope that satisfies the urge to eat something out of boredom.

CraigMBA

Disagree. If one of those guys does 100 miles and 10,000 feet at race pace and his/her twin does it at touring pace, the energy expended is exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the rate it's expended.

I shared your view for the first three months I tried to ride. I plateaued my weight and was always blown up (bonked). I hired a trainer/nutritionist and got fixed up in a day. I was wrong.

My diet was super simple. 1600 calories a day, 65% carbohydrate, plus replace whatever I used on the bike which was about 300 calories an hour (usually a banana, half a cliff bar, and a bottle of sports drink) which is all I could eat.

Everyone is different in how many calories they can metabolize per hour and not get sick. My nutritionist/coach is 120 pounds and can do 200/hr max. When I rode the Climb to Kaiser and all those double centuries, I could eat substantially more. My energy consumption is close to one calorie per foot of climb, so on a day where I did 16,000 ft, I ate a lot.

Your consumption is a function of work done (miles ridden, feet climbed). How much you should eat is relative to how fast you are working. If you are working faster, your caloric intake per hour needs to be higher.

Before I attempted the event, I volunteered so I could see what it was like from the other side. A lot of people would stop eating once the climb ended, and would bonk and abandon 15-30 miles from the end. I rode five double centuries to practice and get my nutrition right. I kept eating and picking up wheel magnet stragglers who didn't and were in bad shape.

Good for you! I found when I got enough exercise, my appetite got into check and I didn't have that problem anymore. If I got into a pattern where I was sedentary and on the couch (sick, bad weather, ect) all of a sudden something like an extra large bag of Doritos started to be an irresistible temptation while I sat on the couch, where under 'normal' circumstances I'd never even touch them.

kingston 

@CraigMBA I can't tell if we are saying the same thing or different things. Here's my point which is true for everyone, regardless of fitness:
Max calories burned/hour > Max calories metabolized/hour > Calories necessary to keep from bonking

I agree that if your effort goes up, you will need to replace more calories/hour. For ultra-endurance efforts calorie consumption may approach the max rate an individual can metabolize.

If you are really lean, you need to replace the excess calories that you burned during exercise. If you're not, you don't, which is why I think calorie tracking is important for calories consumed but not so much for calories burned for everyone but pro cyclists on grand tours.

CraigMBA

At least in my case, if I under eat on my rides past 45 minutes duration (all my rides are 20+ on the flats to give you an idea of intensity), I'm so intensely hungry after the ride, I have a hard time not overeating after, which undos a lot of the work I did on the bike.

My weight has been all over the place the past couple of years (I was 300 five years ago, and down to 230 at one point), but the one time it wasn't I had my in ride nutrition dialed in. Attempting to diet on the bike caused all kinds of problems.

If it's not a problem for you, you can ignore what I wrote, but I'd bet someone else out there had this problem.

kingston 

I agree that not overeating is hard. Another reason I like calorific. It directs you to eat low calorie density foods so you can eat a lot without consuming a lot of calories.

NomarsGirl

Well, it's only day 2. And I made a point of moving around today and even took my bike out for a short (chilly) spin. I know better than to assume I can eat all the calories it gave me back for my walk/ride. But I can probably exceed my couch potato allotment a little. It's only giving me 1320 calories/day to lose a pound a week. It gave me back 682 for exercise. So if I eat 1500, I should be ahead of the game.

And I'm only just getting back on the bike after a long winter. But I weighed in and found that I didn't gain as much over the winter as I thought I did. I know once I get used to regular exercise again, I won't feel so hungry all the time. Just trying not to binge too hard while I reach that point. The app is keeping me honest. And I had a banana for my snack because it was easy to log in.

NomarsGirl

So I have logged everything I have put in my mouth. And I have stayed under the 1320 calorie daily limit they have given me. And I've been riding my bike. And I've GAINED 2 pounds? I'll keep with it for at least a month, but this is discouraging.

kingston 

Be patient. It took me two years to loose 50 pounds.

NomarsGirl

I should have just looked at a calendar. I was going to gain those 2 pounds no matter what I did. They'll be gone again in a few days.

CraigMBA

This is not necessarily a bad thing.

When I had a nutritionist, we used her $5000 scale to check my relative hydration and body fat % over a week to week basis. One time I had my body fat down to 17%, and I caught the flu. I lost 15 pounds in 7 days (like 12 pounds of it was water weight). My on bike performance was awful till I got my hydration back.

After that, my relationship with the scale changed. The only thing I used the scale for was to weigh myself pre ride and post ride. My goal was to be +/- 1 pound, meaning I had my hydration right. When I started riding again a couple of weeks ago, I actually gained five pounds (even though my diet is right) as I got my hydration right.

You can buy consumer versions of that scale (I have a Garmin one wireless one, which I love, because I don't have to write the number down) but you might reconsider what you are using the scale for.

Keep going!

Glad everything got sorted out!

bobwysiwyg

I'm using it as well. Switched from one that actually assumed you would be willing to weigh everything. That was not going to happen. MyFitnessPal has a great food search. It's portions don't always match my consumption, but they can be varied on entry by adjusting the serving size.. by two decimals if you need to. "If" I have guess a bit, I go high some. Started out at 234, down to 218. My initial goal was to break 215.
It was difficult at first, but getting a bit easier. Greatest advantage for me is just an awareness of what I was consuming.

tsanford2926

Under Armour My Fitness Pal has helped me lost almost 20 lbs. in the past month. Went from 318 to weighing 289 this morning. Of course there was a lot of riding as well as healthy eating but tracking it has definitely made me more conscious about what I eat.