I became convinced I was a willpowerless eating machine, when in reality, I was just suffering from the predictable side effects of not eating enough food. I was so embarrassed that I, a dietetics student, could not manage to eat my recommended calorie needs, that I totally lied on the assignment and made up my version of what I thought healthy eating looked like.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this led to hunger-induced binges every single night. I was incredibly distressed by the high number of calories I consumed on my first day tracking (it was college gameday - tailgate beers and pimento cheese add up!), so I tried to restrict the whole next week to get my average intake to the amount MyFitnessPal suggested for me. nutrition professors out there, this assignment is not a smart one to give to a group that’s at risk for eating disorders.

My personal experience using an online calorie calculator was in college, when as a dietetics students we were assigned to track our intake for a week. As a dietitian who frequently works with clients struggling with eating disorders that were triggered or worsened by online calorie calculators (and their super disordered message boards), I’ll admit I’m biased. All you have to do is obsessively count every bite of food and you can pick your weight as easily as you pick out your underwear!Īs anyone who has used a calorie counting app like MyFitnessPal knows, it’s not quite that simple. Plug in your age, sex, height and weight, along with how much weight you’d like to lose and how fast, and in less than a second you get a personalized recommendation of exactly how much to eat to achieve your goals. The idea of an online calorie calculator is lovely.

My fitness pal reddit