Do you plan on counting calories your whole life in order to maintain?

emberlynn16

just curious

cwolfman13

I've been in maintenance going on 5 years...I haven't counted calories in 5 years...

IMO, it's a teaching tool...kinda like training wheels. Eventually you just learn to ride...

Brendalea69

I don't count calories, I do OMAD/CC...That's One Meal A Day and Carb Cycling...I eat OMAD 2 or 3 days a week and some days are low carb and some days are high carb.

RoxieDawn

Probably. Been counting going on my 5th year. I have many goals I set through out the year and its easier to make sure I meet the nutritional requirements to meet those goals than apply guess work to it.

bee_bee8

No, I think once you do it for a while it becomes kind of automatic. After diligently counting for about a year I feel confident I could make a good calorie estimate about most meals, even those I don't prepare myself. In a way I suppose that's still "counting" but I think of it more as making informed choices - if I had a heavy lunch I estimate was 700 calories, I'll make sure to have a light dinner. I won't necessarily break the meals down item by item into MFP anymore. Being in maintenance doesn't require such exactness as trying to lose, IMO.

sofchak

I am in the process of transitioning from calorie counting to mindful eating.... going to try it for a few months to see what happens.

scottydewwannalosewt

This little dity answers your question precisely.

Dieter's Psalm

Strict is my diet. I must not want.
It maketh me to lie down at night hungry.
It leadeth me past the confectioners.
It trieth my willpower.
It leadeth me in the paths of alteration
for my figure's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the aisles
of the pastry department, I will buy
no sweetrolls for they are fattening.
The cakes and the pies, they tempt me.
Before me is a table set with
green beans and lettuce.
I filleth my stomach with liquids,
My day's quota runneth over.
Surely calorie and weight charts will
follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the fear of scales forever.

psychod787

macro counting for me. so I guess, yes. I also prepare 90% of my food at home, so it makes it easier.

SummerSkier

Interested to follow this thread. I feel like I could "almost" stop counting calories. After almost 9 months I sort of already know what is what. But I want to have a least a solid year of maintaining under my belt first. Right now one thing I am finding is that by counting I find myself UNDER a lot more often than OVER. Of course I don't eat out a lot and prepare my own meals.

sardelsa

Me personally? No. I am currently not calorie counting and haven't in a few years. Sometimes I use it to check in .. maybe log a day, or a meal or food items, or my protein for the day. I may go back to a period where I will log short term if I am on really low calories.. but right now I am happy where I am.

emberlynn16

thanks for the replies! im currently still working on losing right now but i like to think ahead at what i'll do for maintenance. i dont mind counting calories but the idea of having to constantly count calories for the rest of my life just to maintain doesn't seem ideal.

jfan175

It's a habit for me. I don't look at it like an inconvenience, it's just something I do like working out or brushing my teeth. It's not that difficult and I don't see a reason to stop once I hit my goals. I think stopping the calorie count could invite other bad habits to creep in.

snowflake954

Many people gain the weight back. Maintaining can be quite a challenge. There are several threads running on how to do it. Most say to have a 5lb range and if you go beyond that--start counting again. I watch my macros, especially protein, and log my food to make sure I hit my goal. I do it for fun after 5 yrs. It all depends on your mindset.

apullum

It is very common for people to gain the weight back, and I think logging helps me not become one of those people. I've only been in maintenance for about 6 months, but I still log daily and plan to continue.

sijomial

Calorie counting was just an interlude for me.
Unlike many I didn't have a slow drift upwards in weight - it was a quite sudden jump following major injury.

I maintained for 20 years but overweight, calorie counting helped me lose but now I'm back to what is normal for me (maintaining), but at a good weight.

It was educational and you don't lose being calorie aware just because you don't log your food.

TonyB0588

emberlynn16 wrote: »

just curious

It's a lifestyle change rather than a diet. So if that's my new way of living my life, yes I expect to continue.

amusedmonkey

I probably will. Maybe not as meticulously, and there may be days, weeks, or even months where I won't log, but at least a rough tally in my head will always happen. There may be times where I do mini diets when I wake up one morning and the scale reads above my hard limit for maximum weight, then I would tighten up my logging for a while.

Some people can successfully get into a working routine, but my hunger, appetite, and overall mood for what I want to do are kind of unpredictable with no pattern to grab onto and build a stable routine around, so I expect counting calories will always be in the cards for me if I want to maintain.

rankinsect

Yeah, I pretty much need to, as I tend to drift upward in weight over time (by about a pound a month) if I don't.

seska422

If I want to maintain the weight loss, I'll have to keep counting calories. I've gained back 100+ pounds twice before (not to mention smaller weight swings) and I'm done playing that game.

Modern nutritional information and apps make calorie counting nearly effortless, from a numbers standpoint, once you get into the rhythm of it. It's well worth the 15ish minutes per day it takes to calorie count.

WinoGelato

I’ve been in maintenance for a few years now and am still logging, although I’m pretty relaxed about it. I don’t weigh my food (although I didn’t while losing) and I don’t sweat it if I have no idea what to log (restaurant, Pot luck, vacation). Hasn’t hindered my ability to maintain and hasn’t been a burden.

Trina2040

I lost 50lbs counting calories and in maintenance about 3 years -- still counting, weighing, and measuring. I also weigh in every morning. I love gathering the data to see my fluctuations. I'll count forever and use a Fitbit; definitely don't want to put the weight back on. I pretty much suck at portion control and tend to drift up over time because I always want to eat all the food. I do it automatically and liken it to balancing my checkbook which I'll also have to do forever.

Momepro

Pretty much, yeah. I don't want to lose it all, just to gain it back agsin.

ryenday

It looks like I’ll have to. I don’t like it, and the looks I get... but with only <1400 daily calories at maintenance I’m stuck with lifetime perpetual dieting.

lightenup2016

At one point I thought I wouldn't need to, but I now think I will have to for quite some time at least. There's something about not knowing my exact calorie count, or really close to it, that makes me go off into LaLa Land, thinking I have tons of calories left. I've lost weight several times (by logging), and gained weight several times (by not logging), so yeah. I'll be on here for a while!!

It doesn't bother me, though--I enjoy the numbers game!

mph323

I'm in maintenance now and I'll definitely keep counting, in a relaxed way. I'm prone to portion-creep and don't have very good hunger cues.

amfmmama

I've stopped in the past and then ended up back with weight to lose, so, for now, I am going to say ... YUP

collectingblues

Yes. I'm a type 1 diabetic, and have to count carbs to dose my insulin. Even with all of the errors, the MFP database is still the most comprehensive database I've found.

Plus, I don't trust my body enough to know that I'll ever just be able to eat normally. I know that's part of the ED recovery that really needs work, but at this point in time, I can't fathom not tracking. Because even if it's not in a restriction standpoint, my TDEE seems (to me) so high -- I know I'll need the checks and balances, once I get to that point, to make sure that I'm actually eating up to it on a regular basis.

CaliMomTeach

I really, really don't want to, but it is looking like I will have to. I went from 193 to 137 from 7/16 to 4/17 and tried multiple times to maintain without logging. The highest I got up to was 150.1. I think I will have to log forever (with the exception of holidays and vacations- I refuse).

texteach66

I've lost 112ish pounds and would like to lose 10-15 more. I'm definitely planning on logging for life.

Iwantahealthierme30

I think I will be doing this for 2 years to get to goal weight, by then I should know what to eat so I don't have to count anymore, because around what I'm eating now should be my maintenance when I get to goal.

goldthistime

I stopped logging last year. What I WILL do for the rest of my life is weigh myself daily. I was away for the month of January with no access to scales and found it difficult. Not surprisingly, my weight was up when I got home. It's a rougher guide than calorie counting because of water weight changes but it's close enough for me.