Logging Again

cwolfman13

Back story...I lost 35-40 Lbs back in late 2012 and early 2013. I maintained that weight more or less until 2020 when the pandemic hit and was able to do so pretty easily without logging anything for all of those years. From 2020 - 2022 I put on about 20 Lbs and I've maintained that through current. I've made some half assed attempts to drop my COVID weight, but that's about it. I'd lose a few Lbs and then put them back on, etc.

Since January I've been making strides to improve my health and get back on track. My nutrition has improved and I'm exercising daily again, albeit I'm no longer training on the bike like I used to. I pretty much walk everyday, hit the weight room 3x per week and try to squeeze in a road ride, mountain bike, or hike in on the weekends. I've also cut back significantly on alcohol this year and decided to go full stop with it about a month ago.

I was pretty convinced that dropping the alcohol would get the scale moving in the right direction but it hasn't budged at all (although I just feel way better in general being AF so it's worth that right there). I sat down to take a look at things and realized I'm a bit discombobulated at the moment. For years I had a very good idea in my mind of how much I could eat, but that was taking into account pretty aggressive training as well as lots of alcohol calories. Doing neither of those things has me kind of missing the target obviously.

Last weekend when I sat down with this I realized that I was easily making up for those alcohol calories with more food (like 600-800 calorie afternoon snacks...fully planned, but still). And I was more or less eating at a level for which I would have lost weight in the past with my training...but my calories have moved from a TDEE of around 3000-3200 per day to around 2700 per day which I was easily covering with my meals and snacks.

Anyway, back to logging at least for a bit. It's not something I particularly like doing and I can tend to get a bit overly obsessive but I think it'll help in the short run at least to get my head back around to what I need these days given my life is completely different than it was just a few years ago.

tomcustombuilder

Logging can be super important for accountability plus guessing is just that, guessing. I like daily logging as I find the weekly calorie number shows the big picture and you need to log daily for that to be accurate. It just becomes a 5 min a day habit like brushing your teeth. I've logged for 20 plus years and you can really see the effects of calories to weight relationship over time.

middlehaitch

Happy to see you re-assessing and moving forward.
You are always a thoughtful advisor here and it is nice to see you also practice what you preach. (Not that I ever doubted you did.)

As another long term maintainer I have kept my weight constant over these past 3 years, which have been different for most, but my fitness level has dropped so reclaiming that is my latest goal.

Thanks for such an inspiring post.
Cheers, h.

cwolfman13

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Logging can be super important for accountability plus guessing is just that, guessing. I like daily logging as I find the weekly calorie number shows the big picture and you need to log daily for that to be accurate. It just becomes a 5 min a day habit like brushing your teeth. I've logged for 20 plus years and you can really see the effects of calories to weight relationship over time.

Logging definitely has it's place, but I'm definitely not one who can do it into perpetuity. Over the years I've done fine without it, maintaining and even losing weight gained in the winter months, but I pretty much knew exactly what those meals and snacks looked like and basically I know what 2700ish calories looks like spread out throughout the day. Problem is that once upon a time that was a good weight loss calorie target because I spent so much time training on my bike. I need to eat closer to 2000-2200 right now and I haven't eaten that low of a calorie target in years, so I really have no reference for what that looks like in a given day, so right now, logging for a bit is definitely helpful but I would imagine I'll have a good feel for it on my own in a month or so...I just need to log for the moment to get a good visual picture in my head.

tomcustombuilder

cwolfman13 wrote: »

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

Logging can be super important for accountability plus guessing is just that, guessing. I like daily logging as I find the weekly calorie number shows the big picture and you need to log daily for that to be accurate. It just becomes a 5 min a day habit like brushing your teeth. I've logged for 20 plus years and you can really see the effects of calories to weight relationship over time.

Logging definitely has it's place, but I'm definitely not one who can do it into perpetuity. Over the years I've done fine without it, maintaining and even losing weight gained in the winter months, but I pretty much knew exactly what those meals and snacks looked like and basically I know what 2700ish calories looks like spread out throughout the day. Problem is that once upon a time that was a good weight loss calorie target because I spent so much time training on my bike. I need to eat closer to 2000-2200 right now and I haven't eaten that low of a calorie target in years, so I really have no reference for what that looks like in a given day, so right now, logging for a bit is definitely helpful but I would imagine I'll have a good feel for it on my own in a month or so...I just need to log for the moment to get a good visual picture in my head.

and that is a perfectly fine way to go. One thing is after awhile of eating pretty much the same foods most of the time you don’t have to keep weighing everything.

You can use measuring cups or for things like chicken breast, etc you can just look at it and know very close to the amount.

kshama2001

Great insights!

Congrats on being AF; I remember you've talked about alcohol in the past.

I picked up an M&M habit when I quit drinking in the 90s.