I’ve been at this tracking thing for going on over a month now. At my fittest and throughout my journey (starting in 2014) I had tried tracking but then would stop because well, it’s depressing ALWAYS going over calories!! This time around after a 30 pound Covid weight gain I gave myself a realistic goal of staying under 2,000 to start tracking . It’s been really great and I’ve had no trouble at all. I also started my journey this time around tracking EVERYTHING I ate with pictures. I have enjoyed doing this in the past not using a tracker but just pictures and making collages of my food with an “estimated calories”- I’m pretty good with calorie estimates, the big FAT book in the 90’s was my reading material so before trackers I had a one up general idea of what I was eating.
Where does one stop? I understand it’s different for everyone- but I’m just curious.
I have stopped now taking pictures of everything I eat, I didn’t like that image for my kids to see at EVERY meal or bite. Will I still take out of a delicious meal? Well yea it’s 2021 it’s normal but just not of everything.
What are your thoughts though on tracking. I mean NO DISRESPECT if you are a long term tracker and this WILL come out wrong- but does it get to a point where long term tracking; measuring everything can become and create an unhealthy presentation of food and just learning true cues and how to live? Should we deny ourselves because we already ate our limits but true hungry still remains and with the opposite sometimes I wonder if I’m JUST eating because I logged and planned for it rather then maybe I had enough but I want to hit that protein goal, or I just have left over calories to splurge on.
Where do the tools to learn healthy habits stop being tools and start then being used for demolition?
I still plan to track for a bit longer, but I’ve really been thinking about this lately. Curious on other people’s thoughts.
Hamiltonfamily2018
Member Posts: 80 Member
Member Posts: 80 Member
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This is me. Started MFP in Jan 2013...with the exception of a short amount of time, I've pretty much tracked all the way through.
I'll add that I don't have kids so I can't weigh in on that part, only speaking for myself here, but I tend to equate it to having a financial budget. Some people are very good at adding in their heads and keeping their spending in check. Others have to track carefully or they have a tendency to get out of control/overdraw, etc. That's pretty much me. I need something to keep track..I'm not very good at eyeballing and doing things in my head. I've been doing this for so long now that it feels weird when I DON'T track. I don't assign any emotions or emphasis to it...its just something I do each today, like brushing my teeth.
Last time when I exited tracking, exited weighing myself... Well, here I am again.
I was obese for around 3 *decades* before these 5+ years at a healthy weight. I had high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, joint problems, a late-stage case of type of cancer that's more likely with obesity, and more. That, while (in the final dozen years of obesity) being a very active exerciser, low resting heart rate, "in the pack" race performance, etc. While I still have some residual joint issues, the pain is *much* reduced, and all the other health conditions are gone.
If the price of that is 10-15 minutes a day (generous estimate) of logging, it seems like a small price. I don't feel obsessive about it. For example, if I forget to weigh/measure an item, it doesn't cause anxiety, I just rough estimate & go on. I eat restaurant and social meals for which I don't have sound calorie estimates, and don't worry about it. I skip logging a day here or there, now, if it involves a lot of things that would be tedious to look up, or be hard to estimate, because skipping the rare day (even if it's high calorie) is meaningless.
I'm a hedonic eater, and I don't particularly want to change that, I just want to stay healthy alongside that maximized enjoyment. (I do get good nutrition, but I enjoy a range of foods, so that isn't any kind of pleasure sacrifice, for me.) Logging most of the time lets me eat every last delicious calorie, and know that I'm maintaining my weight, and hitting nutritional targets. I know myself pretty well, and portion creep is very likely, without some kind of metrics. I'm not willing to do some of the things some others do to stay at reasonable calories (repetitive meals, never allowing big splurges, etc.). The scale is too slow a feedback mechanism, and I'm very capable of denial.
I tried some short experiments without logging (couple of weeks), and it diminished my quality of life. (Less enjoyment, more thinking about under-nutrition - especially protein, as a vegetarian - or about overdoing calories.)
On top of that, I'm sure the technical details of the process are easier for me than for some, because of living alone. I'm not splitting up meals with other people, normally, and not routinely eating things others cook (even when there's not a pandemic). I'm in a very efficient routine of weighing things as I cook, noting, logging after I eat, that adds virtually no time to the prep, and minimal for the logging.
I could stop logging (psychologically), but given my personal life preferences, strengths, limitations, for now it seems like that would be an irrational decision . . . for me. Won't be true for everyone.
IMO, there are many, many things about weight loss and weight maintenance that need to be very personalized, tailored to the circumstances and psychology of the individual. Whether to log, and for how long, is one of them.
My appetite stays pretty steady and is usually pretty well commensurate with my activity...my issue in 2020 was a serious lack of activity due to about 5 months of injury combined with COVID lockdown and then getting lazy with my food and doing things like making a pizza hot pocket for myself because I'm WFH with my kids home and that's what they wanted for lunch. I'm back to mostly whole foods and cooking and regular exercise and the weight is coming right off no problem.
and as I listen to Ted Talks, or You tubers tell their testimony with food it makes me look at myself and want to truly grow in a free lifestyle where I’m just living it and not letting “it” control me with “rules” or so forth. (It looks like for those above it doesn’t which is AMAZING, for me the app is something I open probably 10 times a day and I hate that) It’s really a hard thing to balance and break free of and conviction has really been weighing on me in this area.
I know I’m slowly growing because pre-Covid I religiously worked out 7 days a week petrified a rest day would wreak me. “I can’t take a rest day! What if one rest day somehow turns into two because something comes up!” This time around I physically take my Apple Watch off and don’t track food at all on Sunday or workout, if a walk or something happens organically great but if I lay around all day that’s okay too. It’s a good feeling.
I'd avoid reading articles with click-baity headlines like this. The title is "How ‘healthy’ food tracking apps could actually be leading to an increase in disordered eating" but when you read the article the thrust is that tracking can be bad for people who already have eating disorders. Well, duh.
"Apps that help you obsess are bad if you have a problem obsessing" is more honest but just isn't as interesting.
Also "weighing your ingredients...are all textbook signs of disordered eating" is just ridiculous. Clearly the author had never worked in a commercial kitchen where ingredients are commonly weighed or is aware that outside the US food scales are far more common.
That's YOU. That's how you perceive tracking, it's not how all of us do. I do trust my cues, and plan on easing up on calories when I hit my goals....but I know me and if I don't track my brain will think "Oh but it's just a bit of extra cheesecake", and I will forget I ever ate it and have a snack or two later...before you know it I'm 600 calories over consistently and then I'm wondering how I put on 12 pounds.
Can it become an "unhealhy presentation of food", sure. I have learned through this process what hunger actually is and how to feed it without going overboard...that is entirely because I keep tracking and plan to do so for the forseeable future.
It's like having a handrail; Will I fall off the ledge without it? If I'm careful, probably not, but I'd rather have guidance along the way
My cues are always telling me, "oh look! There's food! Eat it!".
Also depends on the individuals personality. If you're obsessive like I am, don't do it.
So this time around I just use it as a guide. I track cals maybe once a week just to get a rough idea of where my cals are and what I can cut if I need to further drop them.
I'd avoid reading articles with click-baity headlines like this. The title is "How ‘healthy’ food tracking apps could actually be leading to an increase in disordered eating" but when you read the article the thrust is that tracking can be bad for people who already have eating disorders. Well, duh.
"Apps that help you obsess are bad if you have a problem obsessing" is more honest but just
isn't as interesting.
Also "weighing your ingredients...are all textbook signs of disordered eating" is just ridiculous. Clearly the author had never worked in a commercial kitchen where ingredients are commonly weighed or is aware that outside the US food scales are far more common.[/quote]
Right- but there is a difference between working in a commercial kitchen, or making a recipe at home with measurements and measuring everything for daily logging; as in one Ted Talk I watched called “Life is too short too short to weigh your cornflakes” GREAT vid - now as most everyone above said they aren’t 100% all the time; and if this is how one wants to live okay we all have our own lives and lifestyles.
I just noticed my habits of taking pictures and then having pre-measured foods in the fridge and my kids holding up a bag saying “what’s up with this?”- or me grilling my husband with what he is putting in the meal he was preparing the family. I think it’s interesting to look at. As the author points out my habits are an “eating disorder” now, I wouldn’t look at it or say it is, but it is eye opening and made me stop and think of these moments I’ve had over the past 6 weeks and how long term I could be doing my kids a disservice with my behavior.
AGAIN! I know it may come off as though I’m saying “People STOP doing this”- No, we all have separate journeys, habits and ways we use these tools. It’s just something I find intriguing and I think worth putting some thought into for myself and maybe not scrolling past and ignoring. Growth is my 2021 goal...
I saw four people who are relaxed about tracking above. It is very important to note that three of them are in maintenance, and the fourth did not say. Choosing to stop tracking faithfully once one reaches maintenance is one thing; abandoning it prematurely is another.
Tracking isn't for everyone, sure. But it seems like you are choosing sources of information to confirm your bias against tracking, something for you to be aware of.
I have maintained for sustained periods of time without logging, but it's not "just living it" as in my body naturally just wants to eat what keeps me at maintenance, or I just have to follow my hunger cues. It's more like I had a basic way of eating (which is pretty flexible) that I developed when logging and that I understand calories and portions sufficiently that I can mindfully eat and hit my week's calories. I'd bet when I'm mindfully eating like that my weekly cals would be about the same as when I was logging, since other than at the very beginning logging just confirmed my assumed calories; it's not like I was pre-logging and then measuring out specific planned portions (which would drive me insane, just as a personality trait). What logging did was allow me first to understand the cals in different foods and portions and, second, to show me if I screwed up and had 700 cals for lunch rather than the roughly 500 I usually did, and if so I could easily adjust my dinner (in my head) and come out roughly where I should.
When logging, I only open the app (technically, the Cron website, where I log) after I cook each meal (unless I'm going back and forth while cooking, which I sometimes do during cooking downtimes). I sometimes look at it at the end of the day to remind myself of my nutrition for the day. I don't obsess about it or review it otherwise, and while I think weighing isn't necessary for a lot of people (including me), I typically do weigh since it doesn't add any time to my cooking process and I find it easier to log by gram anyway. I like to guess the grams before I weigh and I'm usually close.
I've stopped eating mindfully from time to time (I did in 2020 for a while), and when I did that, I gained weight. I think I could lose or maintain without logging so long as I stayed mindful, but sometimes I find logging helps me regain mindfulness again. I also currently am really enjoying logging at Cron as it is fun to try to hit all of my nutrition goals there, which motivates me to eat even better than I would otherwise. But I enjoy tracking things--my workouts are planned and logged in a spreadsheet (and I build in rest days) much more than my meals are planned, and I find that motivational. I'm fine with rules when they feel self-imposed and I can easily change them if they aren't working for me.
None of this is intended to say you should log; I would agree that people differ in what feels good for them.
I would say to the bolded that it only becomes a disservice if you make it that way. How do you answer your kids when they ask what's up with it? Do you treat it as a learning opportunity (ie.."I'm measuring out servings for a few weeks so I can teach myself what a serving size is supposed to look like", and then showing them) or as a shameful/embarrassing thing to hide/divert their attention from?