Can't be bothered to log

andysport1

Logging works for me, because if I'm not losing I can see why, but when I am losing I just can't be bothered to log. Does everyone feel like this ? How do you talk yourself back into logging ?

AmandaAnne307

That seems backwards to me - you start losing because you are logging, right? I have a hard time logging when I'm not losing and struggling with food choices. I just make it part of my day - it's the only way to make progress.

dubird

Yeah, that doesn't seem right. You only lose when you don't log? Or are you saying you start losing and stop logging, which causes the weight loss to stop? That's a big difference!

dinosaurparty

I feel more motivated to log when I can see that it's working, ie, I'm losing weight.

Don't 'talk yourself into' doing something. Tell yourself you're going to do it, then do it. If you log for a solid week or so it will become second nature.

It might help to put aside 5 minutes in the morning to log an approximation of your food for the day. Then you can just fine-tune it as you go, and you won't feel too rushed or overwhelmed.

rosebarnalice

I'm just the opposite. Logging helps me cultivate "food mindfulness" (my way of saying "paying attention to what I eat"), and when I log, I lose. When I lose, that makes me happy, and makes me want to log even more so I can lose even more!

ColinsMommaOC

What is happening to you is called complacence. You log, you lose, you get comfortable that you know what you are doing, so you get complacent and think that you don't need to log. Its fine, so long as when you step on the scale the number is still trending down. But it is not the most efficient way to lose weight.

bago08

andysport1 wrote: »

Logging works for me, because if I'm not losing I can see why, but when I am losing I just can't be bothered to log. Does everyone feel like this ? How do you talk yourself back into logging ?

I will log a meal or two if they are not something I eat on a regular basis just to see where I am for the day. I also log if Im going out or traveling just so Im not surprised by anything. If Im at home for a week and making my own meals on a regular schedule Im pretty good without logging.

dubird

I will be logging for the rest of my life probably. Granted, at this point, I'm mostly going with best estimates, so it's not 100% accurate. But seeing how many I have left for the day after dinner lets me know if it's ok to have the cookie or not, so it's still helpful.

Try giving yourself a reward for a 30 day streak. Something you want but don't necessarily need that you've been putting off buying. Or make it a 60 day streak. If you break it, you have to start over. By the time you're done, logging will be much more of a habit and you're more likely to keep it up.

andysport1

Thanks all, oh and yes I kind of drift away from logging after I start losing weight then I stop losing then I have to start logging again (like a roller coaster)

shanny484

AmandaAnne307 wrote: »

That seems backwards to me - you start losing because you are logging, right? I have a hard time logging when I'm not losing and struggling with food choices. I just make it part of my day - it's the only way to make progress.

andysport1

So I have got up this morning and logged what I think I'll have up until lunch, then hopefully I'll just tweak it, fingers crossed, your posts help.

Alatariel75

I don't particularly want to go to work, clean my house, scoop poop out of the little tray, pay my bills, do my laundry.... but I do, because I'm a grown up, and I know that if I want nice things, I have to make the effort. I treat logging, and making good food choices the same way. If I want the body I want, I have to do the work.

beautifulsparkles

I lost 18 kilos without logging regularly. I had a meal plan from a nutritionist though, and I was still weighing my food.

I have some tips for you. Without weighing your food, you probably won't lose weight

1. Save products and foods you use regularly under ''my food''- enter the information from google (if its something like an almond or a piece of fruit) or the back of a food label. Unfortunately, you can't save other peoples food entries into your food, but food that you have used in the past shows up under ''recent food'' if you have used it recently enough.

2. Create ''meals'' by adding different ingredients or products in one place, of things you eat often. For example, put together the ingredients of a chicken sandwich (the chicken, the type of bread you use, lettuce, the type of dressing you use, tomato etc). You can also do this for different breakfasts, lunches etc. So maybe put together the 5 most common breakfasts you have, the 10 most popular lunches and the 10 most popular dinners. You don't have to do all of this at once, just one meal at a time. Repeat those meals often to save the pain of collecting each food. All you have to do is write down the weights of each ingredient/product and then adjust the amount you have set under ''meal'' and add the meal to your food diary. This should cut down your tracking time by half at least.

3. For things in bottles, jars etc, weigh before taking out the sauce/food/pixie dust/whatever, write down what it says on your food scale, take whatever you are using out, then weigh the bottle or jar again and take away the first number by the second number. Whatever you are left with is how much you used.

4. Make your food before you get hungry. I get really lazy and complacent when I'm hungry, the last thing I want to do is weigh my food. Some people set aside a few hours at the end of the week and prepare all of their food for the next week. You could make a week worth of snacks and meals and calculate how many calories is in each thing before stashing it for when you need it. It helps if you have a deep freezer. You should make a big salad and some soup at the start of each week so there is always something to grab when you start to get hungry.

I feel yah. Tracking your food is awful, time consuming and annoying. But it gets results.

andysport1

Wowser, Alatariel75 thanks Mum, I'll try and grow up, then again stuff that, I'm 48, work 1 day a week because that's all I need too, I buy anything I want because I can afford too, maybe I'm a bit lazy.
beautifulspa, flippin heck now I really don't want to log, that's obsessive, if I have a sandwich I'll log a sandwich I wouldn't dream of weighing the contents. I will occasionally weigh food after I have portioned it just to see how greedy I really am, (this has worked for me over the years) I now find that my portion sizes are about 1 1/2 times recommended instead of 3 times as back in 2009, I do weigh my peanut butter and nutella because I eat it straight from the jar so can get a little carried away. I have done a lot of reading this week so have figured that if I swap to a lower carb diet this may well help my weight loss plus as the foods won't be familiar I will need to log in order to figure out what I'm eating.

andysport1

In the logging bit it says 2 eggs royale are about 500 calories, I use a bread roll 156 cals, 5g of phille, a couple of pieces of salmon (no idea of weight) salmon is good food in my mind, 1 lettuce leaf, 1 spoon of home made hollandaise, the packet said 50 cals its at least 50 portions 2 poached eggs.
It feels way more than 500 cals as it really makes me feel quite full, the other day I only had 1

Is it really only 500 cals ?

dubird

andysport1 wrote: »

Wowser, Alatariel75 thanks Mum, I'll try and grow up, then again stuff that, I'm 48, work 1 day a week because that's all I need too, I buy anything I want because I can afford too, maybe I'm a bit lazy.
beautifulspa, flippin heck now I really don't want to log, that's obsessive, if I have a sandwich I'll log a sandwich I wouldn't dream of weighing the contents. I will occasionally weigh food after I have portioned it just to see how greedy I really am, (this has worked for me over the years) I now find that my portion sizes are about 1 1/2 times recommended instead of 3 times as back in 2009, I do weigh my peanut butter and nutella because I eat it straight from the jar so can get a little carried away. I have done a lot of reading this week so have figured that if I swap to a lower carb diet this may well help my weight loss plus as the foods won't be familiar I will need to log in order to figure out what I'm eating.

andysport1 wrote: »

In the logging bit it says 2 eggs royale are about 500 calories, I use a bread roll 156 cals, 5g of phille, a couple of pieces of salmon (no idea of weight) salmon is good food in my mind, 1 lettuce leaf, 1 spoon of home made hollandaise, the packet said 50 cals its at least 50 portions 2 poached eggs.
It feels way more than 500 cals as it really makes me feel quite full, the other day I only had 1

Is it really only 500 cals ?

This is why you have to weigh everything, at least at first. If you make it yourself, you can use the recipe function here at MFP to enter everything and that will give you a calorie amount for whatever you tell it a portion is. 1 large egg isn't a standard measurement because all eggs are slightly different in size and weight. 1 spoon of something might be more this time than last time. Since you're making your own eggs royale, enter the ingredients you use in the recipe function and see what it says. For homemade stuff, it can be hit or miss, but the point is to get as accurate as you can so that you don't end up missing several hundred calories by accident. When I started weighing, I realized I was eating 300-400 extra calories a day that I hadn't accounted for! Now, if you get a package of something, it says one serving, and you finish it? Yeah, it's ok to just find it in the database or enter the calories manually. Something like that, or something like crackers that are uniform in size and weight you can go by the amount you eat. But something like chips you need to weigh because there's a HUGE variance in size between one chip and the next.

With that being said, you may be the kind of person that won't have to weigh everything for the rest of your life. I'm not. I still break out the scale for new things or just to check myself, but after 3 years, I've gotten really good at estimating portion sizes. Is it 100% accurate? No, of course not. But it's good enough that I'm still able to lose weight. Logging in even estimates is enough to keep track of what I've eaten and gives me a good estimate for how much I have left for the day. But I spent months weighing everything I could and entering recipes for things I make. And, in all honesty, I eat a LOT of the same things, so it's much easier to keep track of now!


The main function of logging your food and seeing the calories is so that you can be accountable to yourself. You don't have to share your diary and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it. But if it's dinner time and you're contemplating dessert afterwards, look at your calories for the day. If there's not a lot left, you know that eating that dessert can possibly put you WAY over you daily goal. That's ok once in a while, but just knowing what I have left lets me skip that unless I really REALLY want it! Knowing even an estimate of where you're at helps you resist eating for the sake of liking something or habitual snacking.

In the end, it's up to you whether you log or not. Studies have shown that people who log their food, even estimates, will lose more weight because it makes you aware of what you're actually eating. But only you can make yourself do it.