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

StarBrightStarBright

Yes! I have found that maintenance calories for my height and weight are much lower than I thought (and I'm always hungry) so I start drifting upwards IMMEDIATELY if I do not track.

theresa961

Yes I will log everything. I am capable of gaining 75 pounds just like that!

Flyingfingers51

I have lost and regained the weight so many times....that said, I think continuing to log or not log depends on each of us knowing ourselves well enough to know whether continuing logging will help us stay on track once we reach our goal. (I have ten more pounds to go.) When I stopped logging in the past, I fell back into bad habits and gained it back. So, this time, I will log forever. I agree with Trina2040, I must view my calories as a checking account....if I am overdrawn day after day, I'll gain it back.

MrsLMKing

I'm currently obese, and the idea of tracking everything forever makes me not even want to try.

ccruz985

God, I hope not.

andreascjonsson

I will probably keep doing it for a long time since plan on bulking and gain weight after my current fat loss plan, and if i dont count calories its easy to go way over or way under for me when im bulking.

hannaftw

scottydewwannalosewt wrote: »

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.

Omg this is scarily accurate...

HowUdish

As somebody said here calorie counting is a lot like training wheels. It gives you guidelines to follow so you are more aware of what you are eating. An example is after counting calories and cheating very often eating McDonalds I now know that a McChicken is 350 calories and with Chipotle your average bowl is between 600-850 calories. Also after counting calories so often I know things like a pair of eggs has 12g of protein. I often will look up food items at restaurant to see how many calories they have and their macro breakdown so I can compare it to other foods I often eat.

litebright33

When I reach goal weight I plan on logging either one week out of the month, or a whole month every few months just to make sure my portion sizes and such aren’t accidentally growing.

culpablecorgi

No. With a side order of Absolutely Not. My life is not gonna be about numbers forever. I'm here to develop better food habits that stick with me, not to develop a lifelong dependency on logging data for everything I so much as think about eating. As it stands, I currently have no medical reason to count every bite I take for quite that long.

If you have your own reasons to log for most of your life and don't find it tedious or insanity-inducing, well, that's pretty rad and I support you entirely. I just know that is definitely not how my (admittedly damaged) brain works, and it's safe to say that I will not be doing this forever unless I absolutely must.

berky06

I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Right now I want to lose about 50 pounds and go from there. I have been doing this now for over 40 days and it has worked so well for me. Considering all of the other times I have tried to lose weight, I got sloppy and quit. Logging is working so great and I actually don't mind doing it. It has gotten to be second nature. If I have to log to keep myself in check when the weight is gone-then I will. My mind is made up that this time around I will be SUCCESSFUL and those pounds will be gone and not come back!

blambo61

How I lost weight and maintain weight is to fast tell long enough so that when I start eating, I can eat tell full and keep grazing tell the end of the day. It takes a 20-hr daily fast for me to lose and about a 16-hr daily fast to maintain (eating whatever I want and as much as I want in the evenings). Simple and easy with no counting. Has worked for me for almost 2.5-yrs. If I do eat lunch, I won't snack tell dinner but after eating dinner, I snack for the rest of the evening. I've lost 58-lbs and am at my lowest weight since starting this in Sept 2015.

MelanieCN77

My plan is to count until I feel like I don't need it any more. I am almost a year in maintenance and I still need to. I feel that way partly because I am conscious of the effort I put in to get here, and anything more than a day or two slide back is not something I will accept.

HappyGrape

n0vtn wrote: »

I expect to keep logging while in maintenance. I lost about 40 pounds in 2012, and kept it off until 2015. I gained it all back in about 12 months time. I made several failed attempts to get back into the rhythm of My Fitness Pal over the past 2 years. I have been back into it for 2 months now. I am about 2/3 of the way back to my goal, and don't want to lapse again when I get there. It's easier for me to stay on MFP, than to get back on it again later.

Similar story. I cam back doing it regularly 2015 and decided to make another short attempt not to do it last summer and it backfired, so don't plan any attempts to stop now. It takes me 5 minutes a day to be honest, it's like teeth brushing for me. I am used to it, most recipes are already there, it keeps me honest and aware.

Biker_SuzCO

No I don’t plan to log forever. I do plan to keep track in my head. I’m pretty good at estimating at this point. I didn’t log religiously while losing either. I do log every few weeks to try to drop a few more pounds with no success though! These last few pounds are killing me.

CarvedTones

I will probably log a lot. I don't plan to ever go more than a couple of days without weighing and if it starts drifting up at all, I will start logging if I haven't been. My "goal" was actually the upper end of my range, the number I want to stay under. So now I have changed it to be 7 pounds lower and and set loss to be a half pound per week. So technically speaking, I may not really be in maintenance yet because even though I am in the range I want to be I am still eating at a slight deficit and tracking closely.

Need2Exerc1se

MrsLMKing wrote: »

I'm currently obese, and the idea of tracking everything forever makes me not even want to try.

Then go at it with the attitude that you will use this tool as method to learn not to need it. Like a baby with a walker, you use the tool until you learn to do it on your own. Then you move forward without it. You may stumble a few times but each can be a learning experience. You can get there if you want it.

Evamutt

I enjoy logging anyway so tho I'm not quite there yet, I probably will, I'm a bit OCD anyway

BattyKnitter

Probably, at least for a year or so after reaching my goal weight. I do hope that I can learn more about calories and nutrition though, and be less strict with my counting later on.

marissafit06

I haven't logged since summer 2016. I track my weight/size and when I am getting fatter than I would like tighten up my eating habits. I have found that calorie counting for a short period of time helped me figure out all i needed to know and cutting down on alcohol/snacks gets me back to where I want to be.