Tracking your intake like tracking your bank account

jeansuza

Just re-posting Matahairi's post from 2014. Why? Because it is good!

"There is a great book I read called "Thin for Life". It gives great examples of how people maintained their weight loss over years. My best advice? Make MFP part of your life just like checking your email, voicemail, and bank balance, etc every day.

What I tell my patients who want to lose weight and maintain is this:
Think of tracking your intake and exercise is like tracking your checking account. Would you ever go to a store and swipe your debit card without ever knowing what your balance is to spend or what the price of the item your buying is? Eating without tracking is exactly this.

Who would ever go to Best Buy and just start writing a check for the prettiest washer and dryer or fanciest computer just because you were "hungry to have one"? Blind eating is just like blind spending.

Would any of us irresponsibly ask the question, "Hey when can I stop checking my balance at the bank? It's getting old seeing how much money I have or don't have every day . I just want to relax and spend freely and assume that I have unlimited funds available". Or how about, "Hey, I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks...can't I just blow a bunch of cash that I don't have and just worry about the overdraft fees later when I get home?"

I would hope not.

Your friendly Registered Dietitian "

yayamom3

I did this yesterday. Got a little carried away with the snacking and there was NO WAY I was going to mess up my streak of consecutive days under goal. So after my workout, I did 30 extra minutes of elliptical to put some more calories in the "bank". That way I didn't "overdraw". Such a great analogy that I use in my head often.