How to Change Kilojoules to Calories in MyFitnessPal

Anna Middleton Read more February 7, 2020

Counting calories is a way to get important insights about your diet that can help you improve your health. Of course, it is not healthy when someone is obsessed with counting calories and we don’t encourage that behavior.

How to Change Kilojoules to Calories in MyFitnessPal

However, paying attention to what you put into your body and counting calories for informative reasons can help you reach your fitness goals and lose weight. It can also help you get to know your body better. Even nutritionists recommend it, because this information is valuable to them and they can use it to create a perfect diet for you.

What Is the Difference Between Kilojoule and Calorie?

Calories and kilojoules are two different units that measure the amount of energy contained in food. They also measure the amount of energy that our bodies expend when engaged in different activities.

The only difference is the system of units that they belong to. Joule (kJ is 1000J) is an SI unit belonging to the metric system. So, you already know which countries would favor the use of kilojoules to specify the amount of energy in foods. Some food labels use calories, while others use kilojoules, depending on the country of production.

Most people are most familiar with one or the other unit, depending on where they grew up or where they’re living now. However, “calories” is certainly more common in the vernacular among English speakers. Even if you watch British or Australian shows, you may not come across “kilojoules” all that often.

How to Convert Kilojoules to Calories?

One calorie is equal to around 4.184 kilojoules (often rounded up to 4.2kJ). Therefore, the kilojoule is a smaller unit than the calorie where one kilojoule is 0.24 calories.

If someone gave you the energy content of a piece of cake in kilojoules, you can just divide it by 4.2 (or multiply by 0.24) to convert to calories. Nowadays, there are many convertors available online. There are also many apps that can precisely convert kilojoules to calories for you in a matter of milliseconds.

How to Change Kilojoules to Calories on MyFitnessPal?

Changing kilojoules to calories on the MFP app on your phone is very easy as the app supports both units. Follow these simple steps to do it:

Enter the MFP app and click More (bottom right corner).
After that click the Settings.
When you enter Settings, click on Profile.
In Profile, click on Units.
Looking at the Units, go to the Energy section and choose Calories instead of Kilojoules.

Under Units, you will see that it is possible to use a whole lot of different units, some of which you may not have heard of. You can choose whether you want your weight to be displayed in pounds, kilograms, or stones. Or whether you want your height to be displayed in feet/inches or centimeters.

Maybe the most important feature is that you can also choose whether you want your walking distance to be displayed in miles or kilometers. This feature makes the MyFitnessPal app very intuitive and adjustable.

How to Change Kilojoules to Calories in a Browser?

For those who are using MyFitnessPal on desktop, there is a similar way to change kilojoules to calories. Here are the steps that you should follow:

First, go to the Home Page of MyFitnessPal.
Then click on Settings.
Click on the button Change Units.
Choose Calories instead of Kilojoules.

There you have it. It is the quickest way to switch MyFitnessPal to the measurement unit that you prefer.

Nutritional Information

We hope that this information was helpful. It is always easier to keep track of what we eat (or anything else in life) in the units that we are most familiar with. It can be complicated and stressful to calculate and convert units daily (except perhaps you’re a scientist and you’re getting paid to do it).

However, even in the United States most food packages use kcal rather than calories. Did you know that 1kcal is the same as 1 Calorie even though kcal is kilocalorie? What’s the story there? Let us know what you think and if you have any other questions about MyFitnessPal in the comments below.