Tracking calories forever!

jennifer_417

Honestly, I think of a little bit like a recovering alcoholic...you have to work the steps for the rest of your life....but if I don't get Diabetes, heart disease, or any of the other diseases that are killing off my family, and I don't make my (future) children watch me slowly kill myself (like I have my mother)...then I consider it worth it.

BinaryPulsar

I wouldn't worry about that now. You will adjust and find a balance and take breaks and find what works for you. Maintenance is different from eating at a defecit.

Also, I have never been overweight, and I have been tracking for two years. Tracking is a way to maintain, work on fitness, prevent weight gain for anyone, even people that detected a five pound weight gain and want to have the body composition they want for the rest of their lives. People that have never had a weight problem are used to always some degree of watching food intake and exercising regularly.

battybecks

I've been thinking about this, and I think when I hit goal I will stay on maintenance calories for a few months to get an idea of the amount of food I can eat while maintaining and then I may stop using MFP....

^^ This. I'm going to work up to maintenance, adding 100 kcal a day every month until I get to whatever my maintenance level is, I'm going to track for a few months once I'm there (or six months or a year or however long it takes until I feel like I've got the knack of it) and then I'm going to fly solo. But keeping an eye on the scale just in case.

I reckon it's possible!

DanNight

If you are getting depressed about having to log your food for the rest of your life, you have deeper issues than logging food. If you know that you can't do it without the use of an AWESOME app like MyFitnessPal, then you use the tools available to make yourself like the 'normal' people (whatever that means).

Personally, I think of it as a game to see how close I can get to my calorie goal every day. Using MyFitnessPal has changed the way I live, but IT IS A GOOD CHANGE and I will never want to stop using it, because I too have issues with food (I love eating). My will power sucks, but having people around you helping you along makes all the difference in the world. My wife and I got many of our friends and family using MyFitnessPal and FitBit Zips and we love the motivation we all give each other on a daily basis. I share my food logs and get harrassed about eating 3 slices of pizza when I should have only had 2. I get made fun of because I'm 5,000 steps behind my mother-in-law so I get on the treadmill and knock out 10,000 steps to get back ahead. IT'S A GAME and a challenge to me with the added benefit of a healthy lifestyle, fewer medical problems, less fat, etc.

Change your mindset about it and you will do fine. It's not a chore, it's a tool to help you maintain your weight once you reach your goal.

DavidSTC

It's not the worse thing in the world. I now love knowing exactly what I'm putting into my body. I just think about people who have diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or other conditions. They have to do certain things every day to stay healthy. A little measuring and logging isn't a big deal, relatively speaking. Plus, I know that sometimes I can't measure or log precisely, like when I go to a local restaurant that doesn't have the numbers for me. Well, I guesstimate. And, it's worked for me, but that's only because I've weighed my food so often that I am better at guesstimating due to that experience. So, if I have to guesstimate once in a while, I can still do this and enjoy all the food and restaurants that I love.

Jclifford253

MFP is so easy to use, I don't know why you would write things down. It does everything for you. I log my food while I'm eating it. Such a simple tool I can't think of why I would want to stop. I also use it as kinda of a game. Sometimes if I go over my calories I change my goal to see if I only wanted to lose 1 pound per week if I would still be over. This has been the only thing that has worked for me. Thank you MFP for changing my life!!!!

8lackie

I think, but I'm not religious, so I'm not certain, that it may be a case of praying when the sun is out, not just when it rains.

AglaeaC

I'm different from the majority, it seems. I have no plans to keep tracking for the rest of my life. I'm learning as I go, get a feel for what contains how much and pay attention, remember.

If you eat a particular fruit of the approximate same size every day, at some point one would think you remember the approximate amount of kcal it contains?

Or your breakfast weighed on the food scale; you remember the approximate numbers and know the appr. kcal for said meal?

Of course if you use a new ingredient, you look it up - since you can't know the calorie contents unless you look it up.

You weigh yourself regularly. And you wear the clothes that fit your maintenance weight and they still fit. And you feel energised and strong.

Why would you have to keep tracking every day, if you apply what you learned during your lifestyle change and its weighing, measuring, tracking, learning? I'm all for using one's knowledge to its fullest as well as for paying attention as I go. If my weight would start climbing again, of course I would return to tracking. But as I see it, the point is to prepare for a new lifestyle and once that lifestyle has been embraced, one should be good to go. I feel I have better things to do, so I'm really motivated to pay attention right now and I don't cook new things from scratch on a daily basis, with lots of new ingredients and such. Win some, lose some.

Always_Belle

I understand what you're saying...however, the simple act of not logging in some capacity can take you out of maintenance fairly early. It depends on how accountable you are to yourself. If you are truly staying on track and watching what you consume and how you stay active then you will keep a good handle on yourself when you get to maintenance. The reason so many people who have lost weight only to find themselves back in the same predicament later is because they reverted to old habits. Logging and/or holding yourself accountable in some capacity will keep you in maintenance. Most people who have successfully lost and kept the weight off have some way of keeping themselves accountable up to logging what they eat. Everybody knows what their pressure points are. Stress, job, family, parents, school, kids...when these things kick in is when old habits come back. You know your own history - the question you need to ask yourself is if you are able to not log what you eat and still maintain your loss? Good luck!

Kr1ptonite

I still weigh things but I don't track like I use to, only because it's stuck in my head what I do. And it's has become a normal thing in my life. It's not even a issue anymore.

mamadon

I agree with a lot of the others who have responded. I've been maintaining for about two months. Is it sometimes a pain to still log everything? Sometimes. Would it be more of a pain to re gain my weight? Yes!! I cannot be trusted and I've seen too many people slowly start to gain if they don't log.

cwolfman13

Don't worry about it yet, you have plenty to focus on right now and plenty more bumps in the road before you need to worry about maintenance.

That said, I've been maintaining for 12+ months now without logging. While I was losing weight and logging I took it upon myself not only to count calories, but to learn a lot about nutrition in general and spent a lot of time paying attention to what serving sizes and what not look like. I spent a lot of time learning how to fuel my body and what that felt like. That time spent has served me well.

Ultimately what you'll have to understand is that you can never go back to the way you ate before. Your diet (noun) has to be forever...the only difference between my maintenance and losing is a few hundred calories; nothing more, nothing less. You don't go to maintenance and just start eating the SAD again...you'll have a great deal of difficulty if you do that; unfortunately, that's exactly what most people do. They hit goal and they're "done"...when in reality, they are truly just beginning. People generally fail to realize that this little safari towards health and wellness is really never over...it is a lifetime endeavor...you're done when they put you in the ground.

Sabine_Stroehm

It all depends. It IS possible to maintain without counting. I've done it. But it really depends on how much you learn during the process, and how diligent you are about eating what you know to be right (in terms of portions, or ingredients, or both, depending on how you approach this). If you've learned enough about nutrition, you should know what and how much to eat.
If you need to log, you do, but it can be done without. And ultimately, I think that should be the goal.
Best of luck!

susanevenden

It's like those of us who have been overweight can never really be normal again. Whereas people who haven't don't have to worry about fitting in that "Big Mac Meal" They want. They just eat it...With a milkshake.

Really!?!?!

I am 53 years old. From the time I was 13 and a friend went on a "diet" I have been paying attention to what goes in my mouth and what stands on the scale.

So many overweight people believe that thin people can eat whatever they want and stay thin. Totally not true!!!!! Thin people stay thin because on a day to day basis they eat fewer calories than overweight people. Yes, very occasionally I have a Big Mac, but mostly I have a Cheeseburger, no fries, or pop and even that is a rare occurrence.

I can state without looking up online, the calories in a donut, cookie, big mac, milk shake and if I have any one of those today, I will be unlikely to allow myself to have one tomorrow.

I stand on the scale almost daily and if my weight goes up then I know that today is NOT a Big Mac day.

It sounds brutal, but it's not, it's just being aware of healthy choices and unhealthy, high calorie eating.

We thin people have the same base metabolic rate as heavy people. That's the benchmark, if our metabolism is higher (for most people) it is because we supplement our lifestyle with a LOT of exercise.

My genetic background has just as many people who store fat as anyone else. The rest is how and what we eat and how much we move around.

Almost everyone who is thin works just as hard as you are in order to stay thin.

MrsATrotta

I have thought about this too, I will never be one of the people that can just have the big mac!! lol. But ya know what I"m ok with that. I am here for so much more than weight loss, I have a community of people with similar interests and goals and I love it. There are so many bigger problems than having to track your food, focus on the good bc this is small. And if you can learn to track your food everyday and be disciplined in that area I truly believe it will help you eventually be able to "eyeball" a portion size or create will power in areas you may be lacking. It all works together like a well oiled machine at some point I truly believe that. You have to be able to say I will do whatever it takes! And logging is a proven tool to help you get to where you want so try not to think of it as a negative thing.

MrsATrotta

Don't worry about it yet, you have plenty to focus on right now and plenty more bumps in the road before you need to worry about maintenance.

That said, I've been maintaining for 12+ months now without logging. While I was losing weight and logging I took it upon myself not only to count calories, but to learn a lot about nutrition in general and spent a lot of time paying attention to what serving sizes and what not look like. I spent a lot of time learning how to fuel my body and what that felt like. That time spent has served me well.

Ultimately what you'll have to understand is that you can never go back to the way you ate before. Your diet (noun) has to be forever...the only difference between my maintenance and losing is a few hundred calories; nothing more, nothing less. You don't go to maintenance and just start eating the SAD again...you'll have a great deal of difficulty if you do that; unfortunately, that's exactly what most people do. They hit goal and they're "done"...when in reality, they are truly just beginning. People generally fail to realize that this little safari towards health and wellness is really never over...it is a lifetime endeavor...you're done when they put you in the ground.

You're done when they put you in the ground haha yeah basically!!

will2lose72

It's a mindset. Why is this logging activity "not normal" to you? Why is what you were doing before - not logging, over eating, "normal"? I know there are people out there with high functioning metabolisms that can eat what they want, listen to their bodies, and do just fine. But not sure that's the norm? Otherwise, obesity wouldn't be the epidemic that it is becoming. I know I can't change or diet and exercise myself into one of those people. So my new lifestyle is working for me so far and I want to keep it going so I don't think of what I'm doing now as anything other than my new normal.