Sparkpeople vs MFP

J&K10910

Ok, I'm ready to get back on the tracking train.  I've always used SP, but I find every time I take a break for awhile and go back, they've made all sorts of changes and it irritates me.  Has anyone used both and likes one better than the other?

I NEED to be able to:
-save recipes
-save meal groupings (so like, put in peanut butter, an english muffin, and eggs, and the "save as a meal" to make it easy to input when I eat the same breakfast)
-track macros

-I'd LIKE to be able to track micronutrients
-It would be cool if it would automatically adjust my calories for workout days

I know that I can do all those things on SP, except the last one.  Can I do them on MFP? 

unchatenfrance

MFP does all of the above and the last point also. So say your goal is to net 1700 cals a day. As soon as you add a workout (say 300 calories), MFP automatically increases your gross daily calories by 300, and it will show you exactly how many calories you have left to consume in the day in order to net 1700.

lovelyheather

These are the things you can track on MFP

Calories
Fat
Saturated Fat
Polyunsaturated fat
Monounsaturated fat
Trans Fat
Cholesterol
Sodium
Potassium
Carbs
Fiber
Sugar
Protein
Vitamin A
Vitamin C
Calcium
Iron

But, you can only set it to view 5 of these + calories at a time.  So if you are regularly wanting to check all of these categories, it is probably not the best interface.

You can save meals and add recipes.  When you enter in your exercise it automatically adjusts your calories for the day (and it adjusts fat, protein and carbs - possibly all the categories would adjust, but those are the ones I am tracking). If you enter in specific goals, I am not sure how this works, I am still using the default settings. 

I have not used SP, but I have used livestrong and I like MFP better.  That is mostly due to the motivating comments from the GISers. 

cnf2013

You can track a few certain macros on MFP, but not all. You can save recipes. I believe you can save food groups, but I haven't tried yet. I have a few food groups like your that I eat all the time and MFP keeps a list of your most used foods right when you click on the log food option so you can easily check all the foods and upload them at once without researching for them. 

Anything you track other than calories I don't think adjust with workouts. But it will give you the amount of calories you need to eat back from working out, if that's what you mean adjusting calories. So if you're supposed to eat 1200 a day then burn 200 working out it will say 1400 for that day. 

J&K10910

Awesome. SP doesn't adjust for workouts (yes, that's what I mean exactly, cnf), and that's always bugged me.

Does anyone know if I can set different calorie amounts for different days? 

cnf2013

I think you'd have to go in and manually adjust each day. I don't believe there is a way to set it up to change automatically. 

J&K10910

Oh well, no big deal.

Looks like I'm going to make the switch the MFP.

Thanks for the help, ladies!

lovelyheather

I don't see a way to set a different goal for each different days, sorry.

unchatenfrance

Also, I know how to manually adjust my calorie goal on the app but I can't figure out how to do it online. Does anybody know?

Lobsters25

unchat-go to Goal on the home page, there is a button to 'Change Goals.'  From there, you can manually adjust everything, using the 'Custom' radio button, or just generically change your overall goals using 'Guided.'

unchatenfrance

Sweet, thanks! I didn't realize I could change my macros too, so this is awesome.