What you learned by tracking?

Sophiareed218

Has anyone freaked out when you realize how much you really consuming before? Tracking calories can have some unpleasant realizations! What were you eating before and were you startled by how much? Let's hear it!

My freak out moment was chips- lika whole bag of chips. No, not the individual ones.

Beckilovespizza

I definitely learnt a lot when I started tracking but more so when I realised to weigh food too. Doritos were the eye opener, I could easily munch through a 225g share bag on my own. Now I buy the multipacks with 30g bags and they are still high in cals but tracking taught me to eat a portion rather than all the portions!

Kealihc

Ugh...every day! lol
Chocolate chips...70 cals in a teeny tiny tablespoon!
There is a lot of food I just don't bother with anymore.
I'm happy to have learned the hard lessons of portion control though!
And on the other hand, paying attention to calories has had some pleasant surprises! You find some of your favorites aren't so horrible and learn to eat more of those!

TheKingsChampion

I didn't eat much in terms of quantity but I ate a lot of high calorie stuff which added up. Like I would make a pasta dish and add some cheese to it, and then I would finish off the rest of the block while cooking.

Or I would eat yoghurt for dinner (regular not low fat), but then I'd eat a whole 500gram container.
Or I would eat a 100g of salted nuts. (I never knew they were that high in calories so that was an eye opener.)

Little things like that added up for me.

Now it seems I have the opposite problem. I can't eyeball things. A 3/4 glass of milk looks like a full glass to me. 10grams of nuts looks like 40grams. Thus if I don't weigh/meassure I now undereat without knowing....and then I wonder a week or 2 later why I feel like eating EVERYTHING in sight.

Edit to add : the funny thing is I could have actually fitted in the yoghurt had I just bought the low fat one instead of regular.

Makterbro

Yeah, I used to eat about 2500-3000cal a day. I used to order pizza and be able to eat the entire thing by myself plus an entire 2 liter bottle of soda and candy or ice cream/brownies.

eepeter

McDonalds were wrong.

cardozojoann

Since I started tracking my calories I realized that I was eating way too much. I would eat large servings of foods and bad foods too. Everything was through the roof. It taught me how to portion my foods and what foods I should be eating

moya_bleh

The first (and main) thing that I learned was that my body needed a lot less than what I was feeding it with!

jacqui1612

I just made a pizza for dinner. I added things as I put them on the pizza to here. I didn't add usuals like salami or cabanossi and only a small amount of cheese and over 750 cals. Now I will probably only eat half but I was surprised how quick it added up!

Sued0nim

I've been shocked how low olive oil is tbh ...before tracking I'd avoid putting dressing on a salad but its so much nicer with 1/2 tsp olive oil and balsamic vinegar and that's only 20 cals...

Also ice cream lollies...a Solero or Fab is only 94/90 calories ...easily eaten daily

But the other side ..yes I don't eat a whole bag of crisps (chips) any more and I would always eat an entire pizza rather than a couple of slices and scoff at the size of individual pizzas in the supermarket ...smaller than 12" seemed pointless

shanreta

Breakfast cereal.

'Typical' serving is 40g - shocked the first time I weighed out 40g and put it into a bowl. Small handful of flakes sitting at the bottom of the bowl...I must have been eating 60-80g every day plus milk.

After that I switched to steel cut oats and made oatmeal. Way more filling and better for me - no added sugars, salt etc.

kommodevaran

The first (and main) thing that I learned was that my body needed a lot less than what I was feeding it with!

Yes :embarassed:

zeal26

I actually shudder at the thought of how much I used to eat! I really had NO idea what say, a portion of cheese or cereal looked like. I remember being shocked by the calories in cookies too- it wasn't that I thought they were healthy beforehand but 50+ calories in ONE small cookie like an oreo?!

It's no wonder I ended up overweight...

jenilla1

I discovered that managing my weight could be super easy if I just pay attention, put forth a small amount of effort and exercise basic self-control. (I've been maintaining for years now just by tracking calories here on MFP.) I also learned that I wasn't eating enough fruits, veggies and protein. (I'm much better at it now because tracking forces me to be aware.) :drinker:

joyfuljoy65

Breakfast cereal.

'Typical' serving is 40g - shocked the first time I weighed out 40g and put it into a bowl. Small handful of flakes sitting at the bottom of the bowl...I must have been eating 60-80g every day plus milk.

Me too.... in fact I still weigh out almost everything and prob will for a long time! Pasta is another - weigh out 60g dry and it looks like nothing, but it is enough. Before I must of been eating 3 portions easy. I still over-eyeball so weighing is the key learnt thing for me.

jenilla1

Breakfast cereal...

Yes! That was quite the shocker, wasn't it? :sad:

Natihilator

I learned that I eat a lot of dietary fat. Not usually the "healthy" kind. Butter errday.

I've also learned that it doesn't really matter as far as weight loss for me as long as I keep my calories and carbs in check.

myrtille87

Quantities of carbs and the calories therein.

I have nothing against carbs, don't try to follow a low carb diet and have carbs of some kind at every meal (more or less). But my portion sizes before meant I was eating way too many calories even when having a relatively "healthy" meal.

For example, I would make 2 tortilla wraps with roast chicken breast, tomato, avocado, salad leaves and a bit of pesto mayonnaise (mixing 1 tsp pesto with 1tbs low fat mayo). Nice healthy stuff, right? Chicken and salad, nothing fried, and in a thin wrap not a massive wedge of bread. The realisation that a wrap was 180 calories (so 2 wraps comes to 360 calories meaning my lunch was over 500) was pretty bad.

Same with a nice pasta dish. I do a tasty veal mince ragu - sauté onion, carrots and celery, add some nice lean veal mince, chopped tomatoes and a bit of white wine, and serve with pasta and a little parmesan. Hardly junk food - a good balanced meal. Except I was using 100g spaghetti which comes to 355 calories. I now have 60g pasta instead.

Olive oil is the other biggie. I use it almost every time I cook, and didn't used to measure, just put a good glug into the pan or roasting dish. So I was probably using about 2 tbs most meals (though these were meals for 2-4 people). 1 tbs of olive oil is 120 calories. Now I measure using teaspoons and tablespoons. I don't mess around with low calorie spray, I stick to my usual ingredients, but I am much more careful about how much I use.

crystalblair2355

I weigh every morning its a habit that some say would be a NO no HOW ever doing so has made me aware and super conscious of how what i was eating was affecting my weight loss journey (hard to explain but it has helped me be more aware)
any way i have learned by counting my calories and using MFP that I have been eating WAAAAY too many carbs
and i THINK that has been or could be the reason why I have been fluctuating SO much on my weight when i weigh and why i get aggrivated that the scale moves up when I have ate bread or etc durring my day as or with a meal

afortunatedragon

To be accurate and looking at calories on the lable.

I just realized that one butter cookie with chocolate has 70cals.
I can remember eating a whole pack in the old times - so 630 cals - in 10 min.
Not that I would have realized then. Or said that I ate so much...

Bread still shocks me every time. But I couldn't live without it.

fluffyasacat

Now that I'm tracking I eat a lot more salads and vegetables. Olive oil is disappointingly high in calories, and sourdough bread is an absolute budget killer.