Anybody else get tired of counting calories?

craiglawanna0911

I'm counting calories and yes it's a headache some days ..but i enjoy challenging myself to eat fewer than the day before.

JBanx256

I get tired of going to work, doing laundry, paying bills, etc too...but if something works, it works! I personally go by macros as opposed to calories, but it's still counting/logging.

Lounmoun

FitAndLean_5738 wrote: »

For everyone who logs: do you all use food scales to weigh every bite of food? What if you're at someone's house for dinner or at a restaurant? Do you bring your food scale with you so you can measure your food? Do you bring you food scale on vacation with you? Or do you just not log or do you estimate?

For those who log but don't have a food scale: how has estimating everything been going? Were you able to see results while solely relying on portion size estimates?

I eat most of my meals prepared from home. I use a food scale to weigh a number of things at home. I do not weigh every single thing I eat. I usually weigh things like peanut butter, salad dressing, cheese, meat, condiments. I do not weigh things like salad greens, every slice of bread, eggs.
I do not take my food scale to a restaurant or someone else's home when I do eat away from home.
I eat a variety of food at home and have paid attention to portion sizes so I feel fairly comfortable estimating the times I need to. I needed to log and weigh food for quite awhile to lear what portion sizes were right for me.

suzievv

oat_bran wrote: »

Yeah, it's really exhausting sometimes to be honest. I feel like I can never relax. Like, I can't just grab an apple without thinking and eat it when I'm hungry. I should take out my scale, weight it, make sure it fits into my goal, then log the number before I forget. It sort of takes the enjoyment out of eating the apple. Any event that has food in it, makes me a little nervous and needs to be prepared for in advance. How will I know the calories of food that I will be eating? Should I try to look for the info in advance? should I estimate? How will I work it into my goal? should I readjust all of my other meals that day or the next day to bee able to "afford" it. Sometimes it's easier to pass on the invitation than to worry about all that. And sometimes when I'm eating out with friends or I'm at a party the calories are always on the back of my mind. Like, before grabbing a handful of popcorn or dip a carrot into the hummus, I have to estimate the calories and decide if it fits into my goal and make a mental note to log it as soon as I can instead of focusing on the conversation I'm having. Eating out, being invited over for dinner, parties, holidays, spending time over at a friend's place, when you have to cook for yourself and someone else at the same time, going to vacation... everything is associated with slight anxiety around calories and is less enjoyable due to having to log.

Cooking, instead of being therapeutic and relaxing is now less enjoyable as well, and takes so much more time. Because I have to make sure to weigh every single ingredient before adding it, log everything, then divide into equal portions, all while making sure that the calories and macros per serving fit your goal.

I really don't understand how people here take "only a fe minutes to log". Most of my meals are made from scratch and contain many ingredients. So I have to weigh every one of them every time I cook and log it while I'm cooking or preparing my meal to eat later. Which takes quite a lot of time in my opinion. If I include the time I spend on grocery planning to fit my goals, meal planning, weighing separately the ingredients for my every meal (3-5times a day), or looking for the closest estimates when I don't know the exact calories, logging it, making sure it fits my goal etc. it takes much more time than "a few minutes" and much more energy and headspace than I want to spend on t.

I will definitely not be able (or willing) to spend my entire life doing that. I can only hope that someday after losing enough weight and logging at maintenance I can learn to eat intuitively. I mean 80% of the people around me are at a healthy weight and don't count calories, they can rely on their hunger cues to know how much they should eat. So I hope I can learn to do that too...

@oat_bran I’m with you! I cook every day for a household of 6. I enter the recipes and use that feature; but it is time consuming. Many, many times it does take *quite* a lot more time and effort than “just a few minutes” to log.

For most of my life, including losing 50 pounds after each of my first 3 pregnancies, I did not have to log. I didn’t understand CICO, so I didn’t count calories. I simply ate less. I am now logging to lose weight after another pregnancy, and to get accustomed to eating less again... I’m hoping that after I reach my goal and maintain for a while, I’ll be able to eat at maintenance without having to log so much. I guess I’ll log as much as I need to, if I have to... it works, and as annoying as it can be sometimes, it’s definitely worth it.