My fitness pal accuracy

I am very faithful to mfp. I'm on day 186 Itthink for my "streak." I pretty much ignotlre the estimated loss on it but I log everything. The good, bad, and ugly go into it and it keeps me honest. I average about 1,200 calories a day so it also lets me know if I start getting too low on them as well. I'm msgrinchyone if anyone wants to add.

I found MFP weight loss prediction to be pretty much bang on during my weight loss phase. I attribute that to two things. First, my food and calorie deviations were minimal throughout. In other words, I was always on plan so the predictive function worked well. Second, I did not record exercise there. I think that the exercise piece is way over stated in MFP, so my predicted results were not skewed by that. 

I don't use it for the prediction factor, but I do record my calories daily.  I try to be honest with myself about possible inaccuracies in the calorie counts. Most of the amounts have been entered by members.  if for example the calorie count on something looks inaccurate, I use another listing of that same food that looks more in the ball park.  If I want to eat 3 oz of pork chop and one entry is really low and one seems reasonable, I use the higher one. I keep my food pretty plain, so I don't really look at casserole type foods, I think those can be way off!

Anne

Just really started using it and so far I like it; especially the part where you can scan in a bar code and adjust the portion size you ate.  I find the exercise portion over estimates; or should I say it doesn't match what my Norditrac x9i trainer says. One of them is wrong.  I go with the lower number!  I don't eat "up to" the extra calories burned by my exercise. 

I've used MFP for years to track calorie and exercise levels. I don't eat back the exercise calories, however, not least because I feel MFP grossly overestimates those. 

I like that I can plan a day's food and roughly even out when I am consuming my calories over the course of the day. I like the accountability factor. I like that if I really want to splurge on something calorie-wise, I can look at my food for the day or week and work it into my planned calorie levels. I also enjoy the booster and accountability aspects of having friends there. It's also pretty cool that my Withings scale automatically links to MFP and updates my weight every morning!