Counting calories forever

healthy491

Maybe a silly question , but out of curiousity , once you get to your goal weight , do you plan to keep counting calories everyday for the rest of your lives? I mean its a little hard to keep track of everything you eat especially if you have an active and busy life

XSaturnsMoonX

To maintain my weight? Yes at least for the first year. Your body is used to being at a certain weight (Your starting weight) and will fight you to regain that weight because that is where it is comfortable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=0

I believe the article states it takes 6 months of maintenance for your new weight to become "normal" to your body.

NayeemDaDreame

I think it's possible to wean off the tracking once you become real familiar with different foods, or become a creature of habit and eat the same stuff in the same portions. Otherwise, it's just a great tool to use to allow for eating a variety of things.

thenananator

I believe I am doomed for life...I have lost and gained weight too many times. Counting and logging keeps me in tune with myself.

dia_nruf

I plan on counting calories (weighing my food) for the rest of my life. If I don't I will end up back where I started. It is just to easy to play those tricks with myself.

Hornsby

Honestly, what MFP did for me, after weighing and measuring nearly all of my intake for 8 months, was give me the ability to better estimate portions and "count" in my head. It also taught me that fluctuations happen. So, when I don't have a goal that needs to be precise with calories, I can wing it in my head which takes 10 seconds. I can watch weight and adjust as needed. If I need precision, I can weigh and measure to hit specific calorie and macro goals.

_Waffle_

NayeemDaDreame wrote: »

I think it's possible to wean off the tracking once you become real familiar with different foods, or become a creature of habit and eat the same stuff in the same portions. Otherwise, it's just a great tool to use to allow for eating a variety of things.

Yup yup. That's me. I generally eat a lot of the same things so I basically know about where I am based on what I ate.

persephpom

Honestly, if I don't maintain total control, I will completely lose control. So, yes, I think I'll be counting calories for the rest of my life if I want to keep the weight off.

Bananahat

My boyfriend lost 25kg in 6 months and tracked everything in those 6 months. He is maintaining for a year now and still counts his calories. The difference with when he was losing weight is that now he knows how much calories there are in food without looking it up. So he is still tracking calories, but without the scale and app.

SusanMFindlay

Yes, because maintaining is actually harder than losing. You get to eat more, but you don't get the same positive feedback as when you're losing.

jemhh

healthy491 wrote: »

Maybe a silly question , but out of curiousity , once you get to your goal weight , do you plan to keep counting calories everyday for the rest of your lives? I mean its a little hard to keep track of everything you eat especially if you have an active and busy life

Maybe. I hope not to have to but I will if need be.

It's not really that hard. The majority of people eat the same foods over and over again. It might take me 10 minutes a day to count my calories.

paulbrttn

No. After a 15 week "break" (a run of birthdays, weddings and parties) where I ate what I wanted I had only gained 4lbs. The time before where I was logging everything had given me a completely different mindset where I better gauged portion control and the "good" foods.
Once I hit my goal I intend to follow a similar pattern and weigh monthly so I can go back to tracking if the weight creeps up.
It's nice to know that the weight I put on it 3 months came back off in 3 weeks of tracking again.

seska422

I have to watch my money closely so that I don't overspend, why not my calories? Modern nutritional labeling and technology make calorie counting easy once you get the hang of it.

I want to keep the weight off once I lose it. That's always been the harder part for me. I'll happily spend a few minutes per meal logging if that will help me maintain my weight after I reach goal.

rankinsect

Absolutely. I plan to continue not just tracking calories, but preplanning and prelogging my meals. It's incredibly simple, and it has been so overwhelmingly successful. My entire day is actually planned as I brush my teeth for bed - after that, I just read the plan when I am going to prep or pack a meal.

I definitely need a level of structure and organization around what I eat, and planning my meals the night before gives me just what I need to be successful while not feeling deprived.

gothchiq

Yes because otherwise I will get fat again.

middlehaitch

I tracked while losing and for a few months into maintainance to establish a base range of both weight and calories.

For the past 6 years I have tracked for a couple of weeks a couple of times a year just to reestablish my portions.

MFP was my training wheels. Once I knew how much to eat as a base, and my average calorie burn for exercise I had no problem maintaining.

I do have a 5lbs weight range.
I don't worry about the odd high calorie day as I know it will even out over time.

My maintenance calorie goal satisfies me so I don't have the urge to over eat on a daily basis, or binge occasionally.

I think that last point is important when looking at what weight one wants to eventually be. It is a good idea to look at the maintenance calories for your goal weight and decide whether that is realistically maintainable, or if aiming for a few pounds more will give a calorie goal that is easier to adhere to.

Cheers, h.

kommodevaran

Not a silly question I imagined I would be counting calories forever, but nine months after I reached goal weight, I noticed that I didn't need to nor want to anymore. I still plan and log my meals, and weigh and count, but I have learnt what proper portions are (so the planning is mostly to make sure my meals are real meals and not just scrambled together, and to avoid waste), I eat most of my meals at home or prepare them at home, I mainly eat at meals and don't drink my calories, and I buy and eat foods that don't trigger overeating, so it's very easy to maintain. It took another nine months before I stopped worrying about regaining, but my new habits were formed very fast and I enjoy living like this.

I weigh myself every day and watch the trend. If I get close to the upper end of my range (58 kilos), I get stricter, and when I get closer to the lower end (55 kilos), I add more treats.

I walk, but I don't exercise.

Christine_72

I don't know if I'll log all my food forever, but i can't see myself giving up weighing everything. I think portion creep would get me if I stopped weighing my food.

Mentali

I feel like MFP has taught me the tools to be able to estimate, more or less, my food. I'm sure I'll have to make adjustments all my life to make sure everything stays in check, but I'm still losing weight without counting now and I'm very aware of what issues led to the weight gain to begin with, so I believe once I reach maintenance level I'll be capable of not counting while staying roughly the same weight.

Timshel_

healthy491 wrote: »

Maybe a silly question , but out of curiousity , once you get to your goal weight , do you plan to keep counting calories everyday for the rest of your lives? I mean its a little hard to keep track of everything you eat especially if you have an active and busy life

Having been doing this for many years now, it really does become more intrinsic. You know when you are over eating. I don't log too consistently except when I feel I getting too off track. Then I log a whole week of days just to remind myself.

But yes, in the back of my mind I am almost always counting calories. I think that is the way it should be.

afatpersonwholikesfood

Yes.

jeepinshawn

I log everyday, been maintaining for 6-8 months now and I'm confident if I wasn't logging and weighing portion creep would get the best of me. For the first time though I think I have my TDEE finally squared away and am just maintaining without a lot of bounces in my weight and that feels good.

briscogun

I've been maintaining for a good 6 months or more now. I still log most of the time, but every now and again I'll take a break, eat chicken wings and drink too much beer and eat ice cream and throw caution to the wind, but then I get back on the wagon and log and it drops off again, usually in a week or so. I've only really bounced up badly at about 8 lbs once before I reined myself back in.

I guess part of the fun of maintenance is letting lose for a while, having burgers and getting DQ and drinking bourbon, getting it out of my system (or into my system as the case may be) and then going back to my good habits. Sometimes I just feel under the weather or get a little hurt/injured or get over-whelmed with work and I just need a bit of a break and splurge for a bit, but I know I'll be okay so I don't stress. I just enjoy the momentary debauchery and move on.

But maintenance can be harder than losing, just because there's no "progress", there's no end game. Just... static. That's why I've tried to add fitness and health goals and maintaining just helps me reach those.

zyxst

Yes.

mysticatgal1

I plan on it for a few years of maintaining but aging makes it easy for the weight to come back also. I don't find it that difficult or annoying like some people do either.

SideSteel

No.

endlessfall16

I counted for 2 months and stopped so I don't deal with all the trappings of it. It appears that people who plan to count are usually concerned about portion control.

I don't think my sense of portion control is better than anyone--it's not, my wt fluctuates by several pounds during the week--, but I think my discipline is probably above average, or that's because it's the only thing I spend effort working on. I simply tune out eating to shed all the gain. It seems like this little disciplinary work is enough to take care of all nuisance and difficulties (counting, planning, moderation, avoiding, etc..)

Machka9

healthy491 wrote: »

Maybe a silly question , but out of curiousity , once you get to your goal weight , do you plan to keep counting calories everyday for the rest of your lives? I mean its a little hard to keep track of everything you eat especially if you have an active and busy life

No ... absolutely not!

In fact, I've stopped counting calories everyday already. Didn't enter a thing for yesterday.

The thing is, right now I feel like I could lose another 2 or 3 kg but I'm training for cycling events so I had to choose ... do I focus on weight loss or do I focus on training. I chose to focus on training. So now I eat with training in mind which means that some days I eat less and some days I eat more, depending on what I'm doing.

I do, however, still weigh myself almost every day (I've done that quite consistently for 30+ years, so don't see myself stopping that any time soon) ... and I log all my cycling and most of my other exercise as well. I've been logging all my cycling for 26 years, and imagine I will continue to do so until I simply cannot cycle anymore.

Gisel2015

I don't count or log calories as diligently as I did before. After being six years in maintenance I really deserve a break; I don't want to became too OCD since I only had less than 10 lbs to lose when I joined MFP.

I don't log while on vacation, when eating out (unless the restaurant has a detailed nutritional information and if I feel like logging), eating at friends' house, or when I don't want to do it or if am tired of the whole thing. I don't estimate either. Sometimes even if I weigh my food, I don't log it until the end of the day or even the day after, if I remember (I don't use the app).

As other posters mentioned, I do weigh myself almost daily or few times a week. If I see an increase or a decrease in my weigh, then I start logging again for few weeks, at least.

I am pretty good at estimating my portions and keeping control of my intake and I am not an emotional eater nor I binge or have sugar issues; I keep active and exercise 4 to 5 times a week because I like it not to justify eating more. So far I am doing well and I don't find maintenance harder than losing or that age is a problem. And I am much older than most of the people in this forum. and I have an under active thyroid, but I am also a small woman.

However, we are all different and we need to do what is best for us. Some people don't mind counting calories and logging and plan to do it for ever; others say " no way Jose." Just do what is best for you and your life style.

BigGuy47

No. I haven't counted in years.

Gisel2015

mysticatgal1 wrote: »

I plan on it for a few years of maintaining but aging makes it easy for the weight to come back also. I don't find it that difficult or annoying like some people do either.

Aging at 32 years old!!!! I don"t think so. You are waaaaay too young to define your 30s as "aging." What are you going to call yourself when you get to your seventies, a relic?

Enjoy your present age and take care of yourself. The best is still to came, trust me on that.