FAO Tripaway

88olds

I started about April, 2006. Never left. I don't track anymore but I did track for 5 years.

There werent so many gadgets when I started. We could track on the computer but I found that cumbersome. I just tracked with pen and paper in those little books we got at the meetings.

The tracking wasn't difficult for me. It took about a minute per day. The issue was the calculations. Tracking has a learning curve. It takes a while to learn. But I eat the same stuff a lot. Eventually I just knew the points for most stuff I ate. It gets easier.

Had my food scale and little blue book right there on the kitchen counter.

In the about 5 yrs I haven't tracked I've nearly gone over my 186 lb line in the sand twice. Both times I went back to tracking. One time they had changed the whole program. I had to redo all the numbers. Pain in the rear.

But tracking has worked for me every time I've tried it. Maybe you just need to give it more time. You will learn the numbers.

GoRun2

@tripaway It gets easier. I track electronically because it makes it faster for me to look up calories or put in what I ate recently. It's like flossing your teeth. No one said it was fun but after awhile it just becomes habit. Best of luck

Tripaway

see, I run into issues with eating the same thing all the time. I require a lot of variety or I get super bored. when I'm super bored I'm far more likely to go off the bandwagon. The trouble is that I also do all of the cooking for my family, and since I only use fresh ingredients I have to calculate each individual piece of what I put into whatever it is I'm making. I don't count points as I've never done WW, so counting calories on MFP ends up with like ten lines for just breakfast, haha. I make fruit smoothies in the morning, so 1/4 cup blueberries, 1 cup kefir, 1 cup almond milk, 1/4 cup strawberries, 1 nectarine, 1 scoop protein powder, divide by 2 since my wife and I share the smoothie, and it's just nuts. And since I vary the contents of the smoothie it's super annoying!! Now do this for lunch and dinner and any snacks I may have throughout the day, and I end up with upwards of 50 lines!! Way too much to mess with...

GoRun2

It's up to you of course to figure out what works. You can set up a recipe and reuse it. I'd look at your smoothies to see if they are roughly the same calories each day and just use Tripaway Smoothy. I've also found that if I use a recipe, someone has already put it in and I can just use that. I also skip 1/2 c spinach on my sandwich since it's less than 10 calories.

Again up to you to figure out what works.

Out_of_Bubblegum

@Tripaway Save your recipes in the recipe builder.. I found that once I built up the recipes for my commonly cooked meals, then all I needed to do was measure the portions. Over time it became easier.

Tripaway

WOW! I had no idea the recipe builder was a thing! Thank you for pointing that out Most of my smoothies tends to be quite similar in caloric value, so I think I'll just use that as a general goalpost. Fantastic advice, thank you!!!

Out_of_Bubblegum

Happy to help!