Living the Lifestyle, Friday 10-18-2019, but on a Sunday

goldenfrisbee

Sorry all, I completely forgot about this on Friday

We meet here to explore, share, celebrate and (sometimes) agonize over how we do (or don't) incorporate weight loss guidelines into our daily lives. "It's a lifestyle, not a diet" is easily and often said, but sometimes not so simply put into practice.

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion. Thread starters for October are below:

Monday - whathapnd (Emmie)
Tuesday - Imastar2 (Derrick)
Wednesday - gavinflynn1 (Gavin)
Thursday - misterhub (Greg)
Friday - goldenfrisbee (Chris)


Today’s topic: Tracking again. @Olds88 posted something that got my attention "Fortunately counting doesn’t have to be perfect to work"

Do you find this to be true?

goldenfrisbee

I really needed this today. I was sitting on the couch drinking my morning coffee, feeling discouraged that I'm finding it difficult to commit to LTL as a daily practice. I do my best when I write down what I've eaten on the MFP app. It keeps me mindful even when I go over, or way over.

I used to follow the WW points system and then transitioned to counting calories. It seems that just knowing that I will be writing down what I eat helps me to eat less. I consistently lose weight when I track, even when I have days that hit 4K calories. The trend is always down and to the right.

myallforjcbill

Good reminder. I think the primary benefit of tracking is keeping you aware and focused and a structure to make informed decisions and manage your intake. So I agree with the "not be perfect" comment. But the danger long term is not being perfect can lead to problems over time. I think, like measuring and weighing estimates, you have to true things up from time to time to keep close to reality.

Jerdtrmndone

I agree with with @myallforjcbill.
I track weigh and measure to stay accountable but I do evaluate myself from time to time to make sure my portions are not getting larger.

imastar2

@goldenfrisbee Chris this is for me a timely topic. I also have been going back and forth tracking between MFP and WW. I got kinda teed off at WW on their last big change and had decided it was leaning way to much toward the Atkins diet/keto/diet or paleo diet.

My nutritionist who is a RD said we need carbs to fuel the body and survive. They just need to be non processed carbs and natural carbs we get from certain beans, peas etc; So I tried the calorie thing from MFP I worked with her and she didnt like WW or MFP necessarily due to the fact that she wanted to keep things simple. When you throw in tracking or counting calories it becomes not so simple. This made perfect sense to me. So her recommendation was using a simple method of a balanced plate. Eat about a 1/3 plate vegetable a portion of protein about the size of the palm of my hand and carbs about the same I think then a fruit and dairy. All of this needs to be in proportion to the plate. She gave me some literature and a website to go to which to me made more sense then anything I've done since being on diets which has been all my life. Not much talk about sweets because they need to be almost non existent. This I'm sure would be for alcohol which I don't partake of.

So the website is www.ChooseMyPlate.gov. This is a gov website if not there still is data from many studies. At least there is a ton of info on this site.

So I'm going to make another appointment with her. It's through our hospital system but Medicare nor insurance won't pay anything but it's $39 per visit which once a month max twice a month is plenty for accountability.

Continued:

imastar2

Continuation:

What began all this frenzy on my part was I got an upper respiratory infection back on 10/2 and started an antibiotic for 10 days. I had already hit my high from 2011 which meant I had gained about 65 lbs since January of last year 2018. Well comes a week or 10 days ago I began to have shortness of breath after my sickness began to heal. I was and still am having shortness of breath walking to my car all flat and walking from bedroom to kitchen. Not good so I called my Cardiologist which I had canceled my 10/2 appointment with and can't get back to see him till 11/8. Crazy I know anyway back to topic I began to track extensively on WW and MFP since my wi on 10/4 and now have gotten seriously strick with it. I now gabe gone from 359.6 to this morning of 346.0. So in a span of 16 days that's a drop of 13.6 lbs. At least a beginning.

Sorry to bore everyone with the long post but it is what we're here for. I think.

Al_Howard

I usually track as close as I can, both WW and MFP. However... see my post on @88olds post about tracking.

88olds

I made the statement about perfection referring to this-

I went to a new restaurant. Spent some time studying the menu. Made my pick. And was then surprised to see bacon on my Kale Caesar salad. I don’t eat much kale. Is that common with kale. I don’t know. Who puts bacon on a Caesar?

But there it is, how to count it? We have a bag of bacon bits at the house. Sometimes I add 100-125 calories worth to some eggs. So eyeballing the bacon on this salad do I think it’s more than that little 125 cal pile I put in the eggs? No, seems about the same. I counted 125. A calorie counting gray area.

Perfect? Hardly. Calorie counting is loaded with situations like this.

BTW. They didn’t have NI on the menu for the salad. Did have it for the chicken I added though.

Al_Howard

88olds wrote: »

I made the statement about perfection referring to this-

I went to a new restaurant. Spent some time studying the menu. Made my pick. And was then surprised to see bacon on my Kale Caesar salad. I don’t eat much kale. Is that common with kale. I don’t know. Who puts bacon on a Caesar?

But there it is, how to count it? We have a bag of bacon bits at the house. Sometimes I add 100-125 calories worth to some eggs. So eyeballing the bacon on this salad do I think it’s more than that little 125 cal pile I put in the eggs? No, seems about the same. I counted 125. A calorie counting gray area.

Perfect? Hardly. Calorie counting is loaded with situations like this.

BTW. They didn’t have NI on the menu for the salad. Did have it for the chicken I added though. [/q

I've been told that most small chains, and single restaurants, are not required to post NI. Anyways, I'll bet that , other than the kitchen where the testing was done, the NI is all over the place, due to different cooks.

gadgetgirlIL

I agree that tracking, even if imperfect, keeps me from denying how much I actually am eating. Just the simple act of writing down all that goes into my mouth can be enlightening. It is easy to say that a piece of candy here and there don't matter, but nibble on enough candy, even the minis that are so popular at Halloween, and it can add up.

Way back, when I used to go to meetings, my leader came up with how bites, licks, and tastes (BLTs) could give you an extra 21 points in a day (I don't recall which WW iteration this was).

podkey

Agree that tracking helps. When I didn't have exact data I would estimate the number of points and multiply it by "fudge factor" (no pun intended haha) of something like 1.5x and lump it together in an added meal entry. While it is true that perfection is certainly not required often just being "pretty good" may not work well either. For me if I had maybe 2 or 3 beyond category episodes in a week I normally still lost a bit of weight. I agree that BLT as it bites,tastes, and licks can add up and should be accounted for in some fashion.