You’ve probably heard in regards to the Energy In, Energy Out (CICO) technique for managing weight. It’s in all probability the most well-liked strategy—and the best.
The idea is fairly easy: To drop pounds, you’ll want to devour fewer energy than your physique burns. And if you happen to devour extra energy than your physique burns, you achieve weight. CICO is a versatile strategy to weight reduction backed by science (1).
When you’re new to the CICO food regimen or calorie monitoring typically, chances are you’ll not know precisely the place to begin. And chances are you’ll know that MyFitnessPal can assist you monitor your energy and vitamins. In truth, MyFitnessPal could be your finest buddy on the CICO food regimen. The app can assist you set your targets and keep on monitor while you’re monitoring.
Questioning use MyFitnessPal can assist with the CICO technique? Let’s get into it step-by-step.
Step 1: Arrange your targets in MyFitnessPal
First, while you join MyFitnessPal, the app will ask you for some important information: your age, weight, peak, intercourse, and day by day exercise stage.
Your solutions assist calculate crucial stats that make the CICO technique work:
Your Basal Metabolic Fee (BMR): The variety of energy your physique burns at relaxation simply to keep up primary bodily features.
Your Complete Day by day Power Expenditure (TDEE): The full energy your physique burns in a day, factoring in your exercise stage (e.g., how a lot you train, whether or not you’ve got a bodily demanding job, and so on.).
Subsequent, you’ll select a objective:
- Reducing weight
- Sustaining your present weight
- Gaining muscle
In case your objective is weight reduction, MyFitnessPal will counsel a calorie objective that may put you in a calorie deficit. When you meet that objective, you’ll devour fewer energy than you burn every day.
Energy Consumed – TDEE = calorie deficit
Then you definitely’ll set a objective for a way shortly you’ll drop pounds. MyFitnessPal will ask you the way a lot you’d like to realize or lose per week.
You possibly can select to realize both 0.5 lbs or 1 lb per week.
For weight reduction, you’ll select both 0.5 lb, 1 lb, 1.5 lbs, or 2 lbs per week as a objective.
You can even select to keep up your present weight.
The usual advice for secure weight reduction is a calorie deficit of 500-1000 energy per day, which usually ends in dropping 1 to 2 kilos per week (1).
However a much bigger deficit doesn’t imply sooner weight reduction, in keeping with Stephanie Nelson, RD, MyFitnessPal Lead Scientist. In truth, 68% of MyFitnessPal customers who achieved a minimum of 90% of their objective weight misplaced lower than 1 pound every week on common.
Step 2: Log What You Eat (Aka, Your “Energy In”)
Whenever you log what you devour all through the day in MyFitnessPal, you’ll know what the “energy in” a part of your CICO food regimen appears to be like like.
MyFitnessPal’s meals database consists of hundreds of thousands of meals gadgets, from grocery retailer staples to common restaurant meals.
To log your meals and snacks, seek for the merchandise within the database and select the gadgets you had, and add them to your diary. Ideally, select from the “Finest Matches” choices within the app.
Professional tip: Improve to Premium to entry our barcode scanner. It makes logging packaged meals even simpler.
Prepare dinner from dwelling or meal prep typically? You possibly can add your personal recipes to MyFitnessPal, too. Enter the substances you used, and the app will calculate the overall energy and vitamins for the whole dish or per serving. That is tremendous useful if you happen to wish to make the identical recipes on repeat.
Professional tip: Weighing or measuring and portion sizes can assist enhance logging accuracy—however any logging is a win! It’s all about progress, not perfection.

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Step 3: Log Your Train (Aka, Your “Energy Out”)
MyFitnessPal makes it simple to log the energy you burn, whether or not you manually log exercises or sync the app with a health system, like a Fitbit or a Garmin.
Whenever you break a sweat, log it. MyFitnessPal can estimate your burn for every kind of train, from power coaching to working to swimming.
MyFitnessPal will take your train energy burned and modify your day by day calorie goal for you.
For instance, when you have a objective of 1800 energy per day and also you burn 300 energy doing train, MyFitnessPal will replace your remaining day by day consumption to 2100 energy. And if you happen to sync your health system, your energy present up mechanically!
Some MyFitnessPal members select to show off this characteristic, which is simple to do within the app. When you do that, you possibly can nonetheless log your train, however the energy received’t get added again to your objective.
Step 4: Add Macros to the Combine
Not all energy are created equal! Energy consumed is the crux of the CICO food regimen. However listening to macronutrients (proteins, fat, and carbohydrates) can assist you optimize your outcomes.
“One draw back of focusing solely on energy in vs. energy out throughout a weight reduction journey is that it doesn’t train us the significance of the vitamins in these energy,” says Melissa Jaeger, RD, LD, Head of Vitamin at MyFitnessPal.
“Monitoring with MyFitnessPal can assist you not solely determine your complete day by day energy but in addition key vitamins to assist your total well being and wellbeing in the case of weight reduction comparable to protein, fiber, saturated fats and extra!”
MyFitnessPal has tons of meals knowledge, together with macros. Whenever you log meals, you possibly can verify in in your day by day macros on the “Vitamin” tab. (When you’re a premium member, yow will discover it proper in your dashboard.)
This part supplies a breakdown of how a lot protein, fats, and carbs you’re consuming, and the way they contribute to your total calorie consumption.
Adjusting your macros can assist you meet particular targets. For instance:
- Larger protein can assist muscle upkeep and restoration, particularly if you happen to’re lifting heavy.
- Balanced carbs and fat can maintain your vitality ranges steady all through the day, serving to you keep away from fatigue or temper swings.
MyFitnessPal offers you a default setting of balanced macros for optimum basic diet. If in case you have a premium membership, you possibly can customise your macro targets, which is particularly useful when following a particular high-protein or ketogenic food regimen plan.
Step 5: Get Your Knowledge and Evaluation Your Progress
It’s tremendous gratifying to see a file of all of your arduous work. Some of the motivating features of utilizing MyFitnessPal is the flexibility to trace your progress. Persistently logging can present you the way properly you’re sticking to your targets. You possibly can see what’s working—and what’s not.
Within the app’s “Progress” part, you possibly can monitor modifications in your weight, measurements, and health targets. MyFitnessPal’s visible charts can help you see tendencies over time, serving to you visualize alternatives for enchancment.
Nicely, OK. Not precisely. No day is ideal. No two our bodies are the identical. Even in the case of counting energy and macros, don’t get hung up on being hyper-exact.
As an alternative, attempt for consistency over perfection. As Stephanie Nelson says, “It’s extra sustainable to take a slower strategy as a result of you find yourself making modifications that you would be able to sustain for the long run. Reasonably than focusing solely on numbers, deal with smaller habits modifications you can also make.”
Different Ideas for the CICO Food regimen
Some extra recommendation for utilizing MyFitnessPal to succeed on the CICO food regimen:
- Log meals ASAP: Whether or not it’s earlier than or proper after a meal, logging meals as quickly as you possibly can means you’re much less more likely to overlook what you had.
- Set reminders: Use MyFitnessPal’s built-in notifications to remind you to trace meals and exercises.
- Customise your expertise: Premium MyFitnessPal members can modify their macros, customise their dashboard, and tailor their expertise to suit their targets.
- Be part of the neighborhood: MyFitnessPal’s member community helps you join with others on the identical journey. Chat with associates and browse success tales to remain motivated.
With the appropriate instruments and mindset, the CICO food regimen can empower you with info and insights into what you’re consuming, how a lot you’re burning, and enable you to attain your targets with some simple arithmetic—and science.
Try some success stories from MyFitnessPal members to see how monitoring has helped change their lives.
The publish How to Do the Calories In, Calories Out (CICO) Diet Using MyFitnessPal appeared first on MyFitnessPal Blog.