Fitness Friday: What the Fuck is My Fitness Pal?!?!

It’s that time again! It’s Fitness Friday – the time every two weeks when I report back to y’all about my fitness journey (as promised). I've been doing much better lately (even though my elliptical gave up the ghost last week! Ah!) and have actually been to the gym 10x in the last 2 weeks – HUZZAH! I'm holding stready a 140 but I just know that if I continue to make good food choices, I'll start losing again.

Image Courtesy of: Cut and Jacked

Which brings me to the topic of today’s post. Since I first announced my Big, Fat, Fitness Journey, I’ve been receiving a steady stream of emails from people wondering about this mysterious thing called My Fitness Pal. Basically, y’all wanna know what the hell it is and just why it’s so damn great. Well! Let me tell you…

My Fitness Pal is a FREE website (and smartphone app!) that helps you lose weight. Truly – it is that simple. MFP works much like Weight Watchers does – you plug in your personal information (weight, height, gender), calculate your ideal weight (safely!), and then use the tools provided to manage your diet and exercise. Simply put in your food choices every day and MFP will tell you how many calories you are consuming (and how many you need to lose weight). Add in your exercise and “earn” more calories. Simple, right?

I love this program because it is 1. FREE and 2. Accessible. No confusing algorithms, no doing the math myself, no cutesy website design. Just calories in, calories out, and pounds off. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

What I really like is that I can calculate and track every calories that goes into my mouth so that when I’m out and about and tempted to “cheat” – all I have to do is plug what I want to eat into the food choices and it allows me to see how many calories that REALLY is. This has been a lifesaver for me since I have a very difficult time calculating calories on my own (and understanding portion sizes took me a while to get down, too).

I also like My Fitness Pal’s exercise tracker – it lets you calculate your cardio and keep tabs on your strength training in one spot. I’ve used this tool a lot to figure out how many calories I have “earned” through my cardio workouts. It also assists me whenever I’m ready to shake up my strength training routine (about 4 weeks) since I can just look back and see what reps and weights I’ve been doing.

But the absolute BEST thing about being a part of My Fitness Pal has been the support. Some people love getting it in the forums and some use their free blog but me? I’m a sucker for my MFP friends. They’ve been there for me every single day that I’ve logged in and helped keep me motivated in more ways that I ever could have imagined! To me? THAT’S been the most delightful surprise of all.

Amazeballs, right? So! Does this inspire you? Are you in? Do you want to publicly declare a Fitness Journey of your own (if you blog about it, I’ll be sure to follow you!)? And, as always, bug me on Twitter, Facebook, check out my Fitness board on Pinterest, and MOST importantly – be my friend on My Fitness Pal (I’m akbuilt – invite me to be your friend and I’ll add you to my group!). Thanks for everything, y'all. I do appreciate every little bit.