Do you count bad days?

stormieweather

I log them and graph everything.

epj78

Yes. In fact, I learned a ton yesterday that is already showing results today. I was about 300 over yesterday (still under maintenance), but would have been significantly higher had I not logged and saw that I was within spitting distance of being at goal.

AND!! I learned that I'm not hungry when I front load the day. I had eaten all of those calories before 2:30 in the afternoon - guess what? not hungry the rest of the day -- I had been crazy hungry for a full week before. So, today I had a 400 calorie breakfast and guess what? Same thing - didn't get hungry all day. Ate planned food the rest of the day and was fine. So, one bad day = lifelong learning to eat what seems like an obscene amount early in the day.

gemco

yes i log everything, even the disaster days. i keep my diary private though, i'm not ready to be scrutinised by my friends yet (i have actual friends on here, i wouldn't care about strangers) but i don't like to cheat - i figure they can see whether it says 'under her calorie goal' or not. i even logged the 560 calorie muffin i had for my birthday yesterday, and then was horrified and plan not to eat one ever again XD there are much cheaper ways to get a choccy fix!

dreamc08

Yep, I log absolutely everything. Sometimes if I go out to eat or something and can't find nutrition info I either put something similar from another restaurant or estimate (but I always estimate high just to be safe). I also don't really have 'cheat' days but if I really want something, I'll have it. This is a lifestyle change, not a diet and it isn't realistic to think that I won't eat out or eat cake ever again, I just do it in moderation.

ditto!

MyNameIsNotBob

I log them and graph everything.

Do you use the MFP reports as graphs, or do you do your own? I'm frustrated with not being able to overlay the graphs here. I'd like to see calories & exercise overlaid with weight...

DaveNix

Yep, I log absolutely everything. Sometimes if I go out to eat or something and can't find nutrition info I either put something similar from another restaurant or estimate (but I always estimate high just to be safe). I also don't really have 'cheat' days but if I really want something, I'll have it. This is a lifestyle change, not a diet and it isn't realistic to think that I won't eat out or eat cake ever again, I just do it in moderation.

ditto!

Ditto^2!

I'm not trying to point people out, but I kind of have to in order to make my point, so apologies in advance if I offend.

A few people in this thread mentioned not logging "off days", and another mentioned that they did log an off day of over 6000 calories. It's no surprise to me, then, that people who do log and keep track of so-called "cheat" days seem to have progressed towards their goals at a much more rapid pace.

The entire concept of cheat days baffles me. If you have one day a week where you can eat whatever you want - that will absolutely DESTROY any effort you've put in during the course of the week. I'm not saying you can't go over, or treat yourself with <insert dessert here> for having a good week, but if you have no clue what you're deciding to eat for one day each and every week, you had might as well quit, because you are treating this like a DIET. If you budget your calories smartly, you can have treats every day.

Seriously. If you limit yourself to ~<insert calorie value here>net calories a day for 6 days, and then slam fast food and candy and sweets and carbs for the final day - it's not going to work - it's a simple math problem. It's a tall order to lose 45 pounds in 4 months without a "cheat day", let alone with one.

Log everything as close as you can estimate. Buy a scale and weigh what you're eating. Stop cheating and start treating.

lily1972

"The biggest reason you track everything is so you see what you have done and howyour body interacts with that. "

Totally agree!

Time2BSkinny

Good question! I was wondering that too.

In the past whenever I' had a bad day or slipped I would tell myself "the day is ruined" or "I blew it" and I would continue eating and "start tomorrow".

I just recently joined this site so that I would be accountable and people could see what I eat. Hopefully that will motivate me and encourage me to do my best. No more "I'll start tomorrow"!!!!

katschi

Yes I do.
You can't fix what you don't know is broken.
Hiding and ignoring and denying doesn't make them go away.
When you know you HAVE to record EVERYTHING, it can make you stop from overindulging.
It makes you conscience of your actions.

Recording everything has made me realize the extent of my bingeing problem. It's at least 3x worse than I had led myself to believe.
I've learned that I can't have certain foods in the house and also that I have to eliminate grains. If I hadn't recorded it all, I wouldn't have seen the trend and therefore would've been unable to fix it.

Knowledge is power.

MyNameIsNotBob

The entire concept of cheat days baffles me. If you have one day a week where you can eat whatever you want - that will absolutely DESTROY any effort you've put in during the course of the week. I'm not saying you can't go over, or treat yourself with <insert dessert here> for having a good week, but if you have no clue what you're deciding to eat for one day each and every week, you had might as well quit, because you are treating this like a DIET. If you budget your calories smartly, you can have treats every day.

This is true. But it's not how my life works. I don't think of days as "cheat days," but take next weekend for example. We have a wedding we're going to, and the festivities are spread out over 3 days. We've already decided that we're going to stop at a restaurant we've heard about on the trip up to the wedding location. I'm not going to be logging every bite I eat during the wedding reception, or the rehearsal dinner, or whatever, because I've got other things on my mind. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to be aware of what I'm eating. I'll be mentally calculating, making healthy choices, and, sure, indulging a little bit. In this case, I know I'm going to drink too many drinks and probably eat some stuff with creamy sauces. Oh, well. I don't need to have a treat every night this week leading up to our trip... because I'll just be looking forward to indulging a little bit extra over the weekend.

Onesnap

YEP. This is not a place where you'll be made fun of for having bad days.