Why MyFitnessPal is BS

The difference between me and pretty much everyone else in fitness is my lens has always been how can I have my cake and eat it too?

There’s no benefit in being ripped and looking fit as hell if your life sucks.

There was a time when I counted and tracked every single calorie I put in my body.

I did it for around two years.

Eventually, I found that tracking everything just became more of a crutch.

It almost depleted my willpower.

At certain times, I actually got worse results tracking everything.

I’d screw up more and burn out more than when I gave myself a little bit of freedom.

Look, I’m not saying tracking apps are useless.

They are okay for tracking new foods and new meals to get an understanding of where they are.

But you eventually will want to build a framework that’s so effective that you just wake up, follow a framework, and get ripped.

You can go on vacation and get leaner.

You can travel to Europe and get leaner.

You can take your beautiful girlfriend or wife out for dinner, and no one knows you’re some freaking fitness nerd pulling out a calculator and a food scale and weighing broccoli.

You haven’t mastered fitness if you’re still using MyFitnessPal.

You’re a noob.

You’re a beginner.

You should only use this for the first couple of weeks or if you’re testing a new meal and want to track it.

The idea of using MyFitnessPal long-term is bullshit.

It means that you don’t have a framework.

If you have to track every single meal and plug it into your app, then you don’t have a framework.

You’re all over the place, and you’re not going to get the best results.

The idea is that we want to make this freaking effortless and automatic, and the benefit of that is that your life is going to be way more enjoyable.

And if it takes less energy and work on your part.

Meaning it burns less willpower…

You’ll get better results.

Now, the first thing to understand is your body responds best to a consistent eating pattern, a framework.

If one day you’re fasting 7 hours, the next day you’re fasting 3 hours, if one day you’re eating a bigger meal as your first meal than the other day, you’re eating a small meal, it’s going to confuse your body.

And it’s going to be harder to get your appetite to fall into place.

It’s going to be harder to get your cravings and hunger to get locked in.

My framework is very simple.

You do the coffee and you do the sparkling water, and you do the fast for the first 5 hours a day, the first meal is always the same.

Now, when I was in Costa Rica, I found this really nice cafe and I was more active.

I was doing a little bit of surfing and walking.

At this cafe, I would order a croissant egg sandwich that was really good, fresh orange juice, and a little bit of fruit.

So I had this big croissant egg sandwich, some fruit, and orange juice.

And you know what?

I would just ballpark it.

I couldn’t track it.

They didn’t have calories listed in Costa Rica, but I would just ballpark it.

I’d listen to my body, I knew how much it was burning.

And I was like, “Hey, you know what? Maybe this is 800 calories.”

No problem.

But the point is that the first meal is always the same… and is based on your activity level.

If you want to go very aggressive in fat loss, you might just have 400 or 500 calories for that first meal.

And this gives you more wiggle room if you want to do a huge meal at dinner.

In Europe, I would go out, I’d have a turkey bagel sandwich and a fresh orange juice or water.

I do the fresh orange juice when I’m super active as a little reward, but generally speaking, you don’t want to be drinking calories.

And in Spain, as well as the turkey sandwich, I would have like half a big donut.

So the girl I was with, we’d split like a big ass donut.

Again, that was closer to 800-1000 calories.

Now, this works when I’m doing 16,000 plus steps a day.

But generally speaking, if I’m in my main city, I will keep that first meal around 700 calories.

Again, this is all dependent on someone’s maintenance.

The point is, the first meal is the same.

Once you find the meal that satisfies you that you feel good on?

Just eat the same thing.

There’s nothing wrong going to the same cafe and getting the exact same turkey sandwich with half a donut.

You want to give yourself room to acclimate.

Once you find a first meal that satisfies you, just eat that same thing.

Look at yourself in the mirror and weigh in – if your weight is moving the right direction over 4-5 days, you’re good.

The point is that the first meal should be the same every day.

And it should have anywhere from 400-900 calories in the first meal (depending on your size and activity level).

Some proteins, a little bit of carbs or starches, and maybe even a bit of fruit.

Something that hits the spot that you look forward to is good.

I don’t do a traditional meal like chicken and rice because I find that just makes me want to eat like 1300 calories.

I’ll have a sandwich, or I’ll have an omelet and some fruit and toast.

I’ll do more of like a breakfast-style meal or a simple lunch-style meal.

Because if I have like steak or chicken and pasta or rice, I would just want to eat like a full-sized, big ass meal.

Now, the second meal is my dinner.

This is where I have steak, potatoes, and broccoli, my more traditional 1000-1500 calorie meal ( adjust calories depending on how big you are).

For most people, this means eating 14oz of lean meat, such as a filet or a strip loin.

You could do a ribeye if you want to be a bit fattier, and then some baby broccolini or even some carrots or cauliflower, an some vegetables.

People freak out about vegetables and anti-nutrients.

Just a bit of vegetables is good.

Unless you got some serious stomach issues and you can’t do it, you should eat vegetables because also they’re very filling.

There’s nutrition.

Most of the research shows vegetable intake is positively associated with greater health.

Getting some vegetables is good, as long as you’re not going overboard.

But if you go into a restaurant and it’s like the cauliflower that’s cooked in tons of oil, then you want to skip the vegetables.

Your last meal should be roughly 400-600 calories of delicious chocolate or cookies or something to finish off your day of eating, which for me is always a treat.

But if you want to do something healthier, if you want to make like the Kino Collagen with Greek yogurt and sliced bananas as a healthier option, you could do that too.

I recommend Kino Collagen + Greek Yogurt for lunch when a guy is on an aggressive cut… a foolproof way to get lean quickly.

Now, once you have the framework set.

You’re hitting your lifts.

You’re getting in lots of steps, and your weight is moving in the right direction, and you’re getting leaner.

Now you’re in a very, very good place.

And you can have certain days where you mix it up.

Recently, I had a girl in town, and she’s kind of bulking up.

So I wanted to take her out to an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.

And yes, I ate too much.

I had over 2000 calories in that first meal of the day.

And you know what?

It’s not the end of the world because I did a lighter meal for dinner.

I just had twelve ounce filet steak for dinner and a little bit of bread, so I had like a 900 calorie dinner.

So then I was at like 3000.

I still had a few hundred calories of cookie.

So I went to like 3200.

And you know what?

Not the end of the world, because that day was a small surplus, and I was super active that day.

So a small surplus day then I just go back onto my usual day of eating.

It’s good to have some of these days where you do little experiments.

And maybe you go over.

But you don’t feel guilty.

You allow it to be a bit over 3000 one day and then just jump back on the horse.

I even had a good day of eating in Toronto, where we went to this beautiful brunch place at The Hazelton Hotel.

And I had a delicious omelet, fresh orange juice, some toast, a little bit of potatoes, and the most incredible croissant of my life.

And yes, that’s a bigger meal.

Then for dinner, I had a delicious chicken club sandwich.

With a little bit of french fries that was a smaller meal.

It wouldn’t be 1300.

Then I have a little bit of cookies at night.

On those days, I was active, and I managed to be in a small deficit and woke up leaner.

Once you have the gangster framework that just works, you can play around with other things.

Maybe one day you have a little bit of a pizza

The next day just eat very high protein for lunch.

You can go the MyFitnessPal route…

But once you hit 2,000 or 2,200 calories and enter into MyFitnessPal but you are still starving.

You are going to screw up and likely binge.

I like building the skill of tracking using common sense.

With practice, you’ll get better at eyeballing portions and knowing if you’re on track or going over your targets, without meticulously weighing and measuring every single food to the exact gram.

It’s a valuable skill to develop rather than being overly rigid and relying on a food scale for everything.

You can never be 100% accurate anyway.

Even if you’re using a food scale, even if you’re using spoonfuls, you’ll never be 100% accurate.

So you do not need to stress to the milligram with tracking.

The easiest time you’ll get ripped is when fitness and calories fall into the background of your life.

It’s not an obsession.

The more you obsess about it and track and go on MyFitnessPal and measure it?

The more stress.

The more you’re burning out.

The slower this process is.

And then you think, “Oh my God, I got to diet for four more months!”

It seems like an eternity.

But when you just wake up, focus on your goals, have fun hitting the gym, just eat the same meal for your lunch that you freaking love… You don’t overthink it.

You have your nice steak dinner that you love.

And once in a while you try a new framework.

If you go a bit over in calories?

It’s okay.

You jump back on the horse tomorrow and every week or two, you’re just getting leaner.

That’s when it’s automatic and effortless.

And again, I know that if I have seven Tate cookies, it’s 490 calories.

Why do I need to put that in MyFitnessPal like some nerd?

I know that my first meal today is 800 calories.

I know that my big dinner is 1300 calories.

So now I’m at 2100.

I know that if I do a 500 calorie dessert, then I’m at 2600.

If I add a couple of pieces of fruit, I’m at 2800, and that’s my maintenance.

Most people oscillate between just dieting too hard and then eating too much.

They never know how to maintain it.

So they’re always either losing weight or gaining weight, which means they’re running in circles.

And they’re putting in way too much work.

If my goal is to lose weight quickly.

I’ll aim for 20,000 steps a day, and I’m losing weight.

I’ll have 600 calories for my first meal.

I might do 1200 for dinner.

That’s 1800.

And then if I have 500 calories of dessert, I’m at 2300.

And I’m losing a full pound of fat every single week.

Why do I need to put into a calculator?

If I know that my dinner was 1200, I just have to hit that ballpark calories for each meal.

And the first meal is pretty much exact.

Especially if you do the Kino Collagen and Greek yogurt, banana, and a little rice crispy square.

The last meal is pretty much exact.

And so for the big dinner, you can go a little over, little under, and overall, you’re on the money.

Look, at first, maybe you just track some of your meals and then some of the meals you eyeball.

But again, the first meal and the last meal are already tracked.

You just don’t need to put into MyFitnessPal.

You know what it is.

And then you just kind of guesstimate and then one day stop putting the potatoes or whatever it is on the food scale and just eyeball it.

The key is, if you just weigh yourself every day, you see what’s happening.

If things are going up, okay, we got to tighten up.

If things are going down, great, things are good.

If things are going down too fast, okay, maybe we need to eat a bit more.

And the most important thing is to get momentum.

So maybe in the beginning, you just keep your diet super simple and consistent.

Just like we talked about

Greek yogurt, Kino Collagen, banana, rice crispy, very simple.

Simple steak, potato, and a little bit of broccoli.

Your dessert.

You just do that for the first couple of weeks, get that momentum, see the weight come down a few pounds, and then you can introduce a bit more variety.

But I find that it’s a lot easier to get momentum early by not using too much variety.

Once you’re locked in, you feel what it feels like to be in the perfect deficit.

Then you can be more flexible.

Hope that helps!

Talk Soon,

Greg O’Gallagher