i'm burnt out on tracking

tartsul

does anyone else feel this way? i'm so sick of tracking everything and being so anal about every last detail of every single thing i eat or drink. i'm very heavily considering not tracking anymore. i'm about 6 weeks away from a year of steady logging. i'm just sick of it. i feel like over these past months i've gotten a lot of good information and that i can easily continue on from here with making good choices, both with food and exercise. and i feel like i'd be a lot happier and more mentally at ease. and i'm happy with where i am weight-wise. and i can always come back!

dwh77tx

I stopped tracking my food, but weigh pretty often and go by my clothes. Tracking (for me) was becoming ridiculous, as all I'm trying to do is maintain my weight within 3-5 lbs. I feel a lot better now.

tessiebear40

I couldn't have written it better myself. I feel exactly the same even though I do not log from Friday after 3 til Monday morning. It's definitely burning me out mentally. I'm going to keep weighing myself once a week and if I start gaining, then I'll be back

ThisCanadian

When that happens to me I usually take a week off from tracking my foods. When I come back I'm refreshed and eager to log again.

NYCNika

If you are doing fine, you don't have to.

Same as with money. You don't need to write down every cent and dollar if you can meet your goals easily.
But if your mortgage is late and you can't fund your retirement, than you suck it up and do it, no matter how much "not fun" that is.

3foldchord

Me, too! Sometimes I skip logging on the weekends, or anytime a special event happens, or on vacation. I figure my goal is to live my life, to make this a lifestyle and, honestly, all this logging is NOT sustainable for me!
It's more like training wheels. I am slowly taking off my training wheels.

(And when did they make a maintaining forum here?? How out of it am I?)

toutmonpossible

I don't track religiously. If you have a good idea of what you're eating and weight yourself regularly, it's not critical. But I'm also sort of on maintenance. If I wanted to lose weight I probably would track most of the time because I have a very narrow margin for error.

goldfish29

Yes I was. Then I got married and threw it all out the window on the honeymoon. I decided I'd try to stay conscious of what I was eating and portions instead. This worked well for awhile while monitoring my weight but it was a slippery slope into doing nothing at all and eating everything! I'm now 15lbs+ and trying to lose again. So whatever you do, don't do what I did or you'll be kicking yourself! I should have locked it down when I crept up to 5lbs+.

cwolfman13

I used my food diary for losing weight and learning how to get my proper nutrition and meet my macros. i don't find it necessary at all for maintaining; I'm sure I have days when I'm over my calories and days when I'm under...and I'm sure I don't hit my macros dead on, but I come pretty close.

I eat the same nutritiously dense foods now in maintenance as I did when I was losing...with a smattering of junk thrown in their for good measure. I'm of the opinion that your choices that you learn to make and your fitness is the "lifestyle"...not logging for an eternity. I've maintained easily for 5 months without logging; it hasn't been an issue for me.

Seesawboomerang

Yeah it got this way for me too. I was obsessing over numbers and it frankly didn't feel healthy.

Right now I'm tracking to get back in shape after slacking off a bit, but it's not a forever commitment for me.

Making healthier choices is a lifetime choice, but not the constant recording of all activity!

cycleholic

I know how your feel!

Unfortunately - I need structure, so logging it must be.

Try taking a week off and watching your progress. If there is too much fluctuation, you may need to continue logging.

Best of luck!

gsager

I think I have some control issues. I have to log. Everything!!

csuhar

In my case, I continue to track, but I do not worry about being precise each time. For me, tracking my calories is like knowing how fast I'm driving- it just tells me what my current situation is. For this purpose, my diary is like the spedometer in my car.

The spedometer doesn't tell me how to drive, just how fast I'm going at that moment. I can choose at will to maintain my speed or go faster or slower depending on the situation. My spedometer also isn't entirely precise (it tends to average reading 2 mph fast).

The same goes with my diary. It's sole function is to tell me what my current consumption is. I don't worry if it says I'm above or below where I should be because, now that I'm maintaining, I'm freer to eat more or less as I see fit. But it's also not precise. When I was on vacation, I didn't worry about being exact with my calorie counts. I often just used items that seemed close enough to what I'd eaten.

So I find that tracking feeds my desire for information, but I don't get too stressed out over it.

Deipneus

does anyone else feel this way? i'm so sick of tracking everything and being so anal about every last detail of every single thing i eat or drink. i'm very heavily considering not tracking anymore. i'm about 6 weeks away from a year of steady logging. i'm just sick of it. i feel like over these past months i've gotten a lot of good information and that i can easily continue on from here with making good choices, both with food and exercise. and i feel like i'd be a lot happier and more mentally at ease. and i'm happy with where i am weight-wise. and i can always come back!

I lost weight twice using calorie counting. The first time, I decided I could quit tracking and gained back 20 of the 37 pounds I lost before I went back to tracking.

But I do have OCD tendencies and a couple of months ago realized I was obsessing about it. I finally realized that I was keeping a historical record I never looked at. So now, I don't sweat every last condiment and additive and I don't log the last meal of the day. Once I've decided to eat it, there is no point. I never review old diaries anyway.

Now I use tracking like a GPS so I know the general neighborhood I am in. I still overeat, or undereat, if I don't track. I am far less precise than I was. I take an occasional unplanned day off from tracking but I try to maintain my regular eating habits on those days.

I've been on maintenance since May 2012.

TheRealParisLove

I took several weeks off from tracking at about the 1 year mark. My habits slipped and I started feeling like crap again, so I got back to it within a month. If you are tired, just give yourself a break. You aren't going to gain a hundred pounds if you take a month off from logging.

QuietBloom

I dislike tracking as well. However, once I started tracking, I started (finally) losing weight. I think that it's very likely that I will have to continue tracking even after I have lost the weight, because I start forgetting what I have put into my mouth and think I can eat more than I really can.

It might work for YOU though. You will never know until you try, and if you are burnt out you need a break anyhow. :flowerforyou:

heatheralvina

I dont log from Friday night until Saturday night, those are my 'cheat days' and by that I dont mean WOOHOO PIZZA AND BEER, I mean if I want a little light mayo on a sandwich instead of hummus, I have it, or if I want a cupcake I eat it, I dont go crazy and I still make healthy choices the majority of the time. I also take a break from working out during that time period. That helps me from feeling burnt out. I was pretty relgiously working out, eating right and logging and I got so burnt out and just quit all of it once I had lost 12 pounds, I gained six of them back and had my wake up call. You have to do something you can stick with

cargilb

does anyone else feel this way? i'm so sick of tracking everything and being so anal about every last detail of every single thing i eat or drink. i'm very heavily considering not tracking anymore. i'm about 6 weeks away from a year of steady logging. i'm just sick of it. i feel like over these past months i've gotten a lot of good information and that i can easily continue on from here with making good choices, both with food and exercise. and i feel like i'd be a lot happier and more mentally at ease. and i'm happy with where i am weight-wise. and i can always come back!

I felt that way about a month and a half a go. I sstopped tracking my food but turned up the exercise. I gained about 20 lbs.

Emglyfolk

Just take a break. I was away for 9 weeks with no computer and I tracked on paper - just so I had a view of what I was eating during the day... easy to forget and over eat. I didn't track every day... just when I felt I was losing a bit of control. The scale and your clothes will tell you how you are doing... congrats that you are on maintenance!!!

obrientp

I get so sick of logging, but I am afraid to stop. Every time I try to do maintain on my own, my weight starts creeping back up, and I have to start over again.

tavenne323

I don't log Saturday or Sunday. It's a mental break. But, I'm still actively losing weight, so I feel motivated to at least log everything during the week when I'm on more of a schedule.