Do you log when you've been "bad"?

kristenveganvixen

Wasn't sure how to word this but when you're taking time off your diet for whatever reason (in my case, first weekend of holiday and on my period) do you ever log it anyway to check the "damage" and to try to stay on track, or do you avoid doing this as it's just too depressing?

After seeing it written down, I've told myself I'll be doing plenty exercise and eating at loss tomorrow at least for damage limitation anyway! Feel sort of down about it now so not sure whether it's a good thing to do or not.

RiverMelSong

I don't take ''time off'' my diet because I'm not on a diet. Counting calories isn't something I plan to do temporarily. Sure there are days I go over, like today because I fancied that extra glass of red, and some days I eat maintenance because I'm just freaking hungry. But I weigh and log everything, if I don't I'm only cheating myself. Not counting calories and ignoring all the crap I ate because it was embarrassing is what got me in this mess in the first place. The days I go over I compensate by going for a walk or something the following day.


*edited for typos*

snickerscharlie

THIS^^^^^

shadow2soul

I log it. The bad, the good, and the so-so days all get logged.
My form of damage control would be cutting 250 calories for a couple days to help buffer it out. It happens. If I was over by 1000, then I would need to cut back for 4 days. However, this is what I will be doing at maintenance. Since I'm still in weight loss phase, I just log it and move on. The worst that could possibly happen is that I end up maintaining for the week that day falls in. Not a big deal to me.

noobletmcnugget

It depends. Sometimes I'll log it and it'll deter me from going even more overboard. But other times (usually on special social occasions) I'll just forget about it and start the next day fresh. I find it easier to just move on from it, rather than trying to compensate by cutting my intake even more, which tends to just end up making things worse.

zyxst

I log it and move on. My diary is a big part of my weight loss and I use it to help me figure out why I'm not losing.

Francl27

I don't take time off. It's a lifestyle change. I can't allow that... that would be the first step of denial and I know exactly where that leads.

I log everything, even the very bad PMS days (often I just end up with quick calories but they are mostly accurate).

flaminica

RiverMelSong wrote: »

I don't take ''time off'' my diet because I'm not on a diet. Counting calories isn't something I plan to do temporarily. Sure there are days I go over, like today because I fancied that extra glass of red, and some days I eat maintenance because I'm just freaking hungry. But I weigh and log everything, if I don't I'm only cheating myself. Not counting calories and ignoring all the crap I ate because it was embarrassing is what got me in this mess in the first place. The days I go over I compensate by going for a walk or something the following day.

/Thread.

Logging helps me not overeat. Some days I'm tempted to munch but resist because I don't want to log it but don't want to lie in my logging. Or... I munch, then add extra exercise to earn the calories. It's given me more self-discipline.

Lourdesong

kristenveganvixen wrote: »

Wasn't sure how to word this but when you're taking time off your diet for whatever reason (in my case, first weekend of holiday and on my period) do you ever log it anyway to check the "damage" and to try to stay on track, or do you avoid doing this as it's just too depressing?

After seeing it written down, I've told myself I'll be doing plenty exercise and eating at loss tomorrow at least for damage limitation anyway! Feel sort of down about it now so not sure whether it's a good thing to do or not.

I log everything as best I can. Sometimes I figure out how to make up for it (move my calories around throughout the week, increase activity, etc) and sometimes I let the bad day be and move on. I do the former far more often than the latter, though.

If I was on a deliberate break, I'd eat at maintenance or possibly do sloppy logging at worst. I don't think it's wise to be totally unaware of my intake. And any fear that 'knowing' might 'get me depressed' is just an irrational voice trying to steer me towards denial and ignorance. Gaining weight is what gets me depressed, not 'knowing.' Also, feeling depressed is sometimes a completely legitimate feeling to experience. Feeling depressed isn't always irrational or a brain disease.

karyabc

I don't know exactly what you mean by bad but of course I had days that without planning I exceeded my calories allowance , but no I don't log it , I don't log things that I don't have the exact idea or amount of what I ate, and no, not logging I don't consider it 'cheating ' and it doesn't prevent from 'doing it again' , I don't have a binge problem, I just sometimes eat my mom's food or eat out with my friends , that's life for me and I'm OK with it.

dinosaurparty

I used to just 'ignore' my binges and overeating, partially by not logging it. I figured I was already sad, and seeing just how much I was eating would make me sadder - and that would defeat the point of a binge, which was to self-medicate with food. That pretty much allowed me to keep my unhealthy cycle going, as I wasnt holding myself accountable. I might be good all week, but one binge and all that work was for nothing, and since I had no visible record of what I'd done, I was waaaaay less likely to try to compensate for overeating with some exercise the next day.

I'm not sure exactly what changed, but a little while ago I realised that I was never tought or encouraged to be disciplined as a child. That sucks, but I'm an adult now, so I'll have to teach myself. Logging properly and acknowledging that my ED is really only better (and not 'cured' or whatever) are a part of that. *

Even if I can't always weigh everything, or read every lable, I'll always do my best to log. An estimation is better than nothing.

*Not beating myself up over eating 'badly" or too much is also part of my learning process.

seska422

My food diary is a record of what I ate so that I can look at trends. I can't get an accurate idea of cause and effect if my data is inaccurate.

I guess it really depends upon how you use MFP.

If you use the food diary day-to-day to track current intake and you never look at your past data, there's no real reason to be completely accurate.

If you want to be able to look at your diary and reports to see why you are having plateaus or even weight gain when you are trying to lose, it really helps to record absolutely everything.

arditarose

Yes. It makes me feel better and more in control. I just went back to the PB2 and greek yogurt, taking little bites straight from the container. I thought I wasn't going to log it but felt guilty and found a way to log those extra grams of each. Not only do I feel more in control, I have accurate data. (As accurate as someone who takes extra licks can get).

Annr

Being accountable is just that.....thru the good days and the bad days....

MarziPanda95

Sometimes I log it all and divide the extra calories over the next few days... sometimes I just quick log my calorie limit for the day and move on. The latter only usually happens at Christmas, New Year's and my birthday.

spzjlb

I log it as best as possible. I ate cheese puffs and chocolate cake last night for supper with wine. I was horrifically gassy, embarrassed at my lack of control and felt sick today. But I logged it. I don't want to pretend it didn't happen.

PegMoffat

Even when I know that what I'm eating will put me over my calorie goal for the day I log it because I know that I might be able to fool MFP but I won't be able to fool my body so I might as well own up.

losingitseattle

I take breaks from MFP for periods at a time for lots of reasons but I am always logging in my head so I know if I need to adjust the next day. I didn't officially log much at all in August due to vacations/family visits and stayed at the same weight...but I'm really active and a creature of habit and I generally eat pretty healthy. I've been counting calories for 34 years and I guess that's why I've always been in a healthy weight range...so it does work! But if I am trying to cut weight for a reason (have to wear a bikini) I have to measure and log fastidiously.

onyxgirl17

Yes, for accountability. Otherwise it's very easy for me to slip back into old habits and gain more weight... sauces, creams, cheeses all add up very quickly and I love it all! lol

Alassonde

I always try to log as accurately as possible, because if I have a sudden increase in weight I like to be able to look back at my diary and see that there is a reason for it.

RaspberryTickleChicken

I don't consider myself to EVER be bad per say. There is no bad or good. Just more nutritional poor or rich choices.

Having that said, I log everything I eat no matter if it is rainbow chard with red leaf lettuce or a bag of peanut M&Ms.

Since I have some food sensitivity / allergies, having an electronic catalog of what I eat helps me isolate the irritant when I am trying something new.

Also, believe it or not, many times I would look at the calories on an indulgence and say to myself, 'WOW that was SO not worth X calories' which leads me to indulge differently over time.

Hope that helps - good luck!

ilovesweeties

Yes. I think I always will, or at least until I have had a couple of years as a maintainer.

I have a lot of calories to play with in maintenance (blessed to be 175cm tall and very active now) and it's easy to spend a lot of them on chocolate. The bag of Boost mini bites I inhaled on Sunday before dinner (why would Cadbury's invent something even more delicious than a full-size Boost bar?!) meant no after dinner snacking that night. It wasn't that I had too many calories, it was that I had too much fat and sugar. I don't watch my macros, but I know when I have had too much of a good thing now. Logging means I can either repair the damage over the rest of the day or be mindful of what I am eating the next day instead.

Also, logging still sometimes helps me make a better choice- "do I really need that Nutella Oat Cookie?" actually becomes "do I want to have to log that cookie?".

kyrannosaurus

I log everything, even if it's just my best guess. I use it as an educational tool.

Sometimes I feel like I have totally gone of the rails and when I log I find out it's nowhere near as bad as I thought.

Sometimes I think, "oh, I probably just ate at maintenance today" and then I log it I find out I was quite significantly over.

I find this information helpful.

LivingtheLeanDream

When I did log my food I did log everything, theres no point in cheating ourselves plus its good to be aware just how much we were over our goal.
I never liked my diary going into the red so that always spurred me on to get moving and burn most of them away

xXGearheadXx

Not logging bad days is denying yourself some pretty good data. i.e. what effect on the scales and your weight does a bad day or 4 have? Log it all, so when you have questions on why you were losing or gaining during a period of time, the answers will be right there.

auddii

Yes, I log, even if I'm guessing the day after a binge. I ate the food, my body knows it, so hiding it from my diary won't help.

In addition, I've found some good things from logging a binge (or being "bad" if it's not a binge). I often think I overeat by a huge amount. After logging it, I may only be 1000 calories over for the day (I was thinking I binged on 2-3000 calories).

I also try to identify sources of a binge, the feelings I had that day, and possible habits that led to the binge. I've found that it's not specific foods that I binge on (although I do eat foods I really enjoy first) but feelings and habits that do lead to the binge. So, this helped me realize that not keeping certain foods in the house is not a solution that works for me; I just binge on other things. Instead, I need to work on my emotional health and improving habits.

accidentalpancake

What's the point in logging if you just want to pat yourself on the back? You don't need MFP for that...

snowflakesav

I log the bad days. Sometimes I just put in a high calorie estimate for a meal if I eat out and ate a ton of different things. If my weight goes up I want to know why so I can get it back on track. For instance right now I haven't been losing... The amount of sugar I'm eating is through the roof. No hiding from it and I know what to do to fix it.

radiosilents

It's a log. It's a record of what you're eating. There's no judgement attached to it. I log every day – the good, the bad, the ugly. It's a habit I have formed over time that helps me stay accountable.

heathersmilez

I do every day because I find it interesting to see how my weight changes between the days I eat 1200 calories to the times I eat 3000-4000 cals. I weigh in every day and have done so for the last 7 months (even brought a scale to the cottage to not miss a day!) to see how different foods (higher protein days vs high carb days and TOTM) affect my weight too plus it makes for a much more interesting roller coaster of a bar graph to weigh in daily.

maggiemay530

Yes, I log it all as accurately as I can. My exercise logging is an issue for me. Totally honest with it but days of not working out makes me ashamed that I am being lazy! Got to get moving!