I'm so over it.

DaysFlyBy

I miss seeing my NET calories go down when I workout. I'm finding my motivation to do any form of exercise dwindling as is my interest in MFP and calorie counting. Like without the instant gratification of seeing the effort pay off in reduced NET it all feels boring and pointless. It's not a fun game anymore it's just boring as hell. I'm 39 days into a 56 day reset (see I love my numbers lol) and it's not the weight gain that's killing me it's the sheer boredom.

31prvrbs

Why don't you find a way to spice it up? Lol. Tweak the numbers in a way that you're still accomplishing the same thing, but still get to see the numbers go up. Idk if that makes sense?

Or do a different workout.

Or find a hobby? Lol.

Logging takes so little of your day, why put all your stock into it? There's gotta be something else that can motivate you? I mean, you probably won't *need* to log for the rest of your life, so think now of what you'd do if you were already at maintenance.

Sorry I guess I'm no hope. But I'm also not a numbers person :-/


-Kiki

DaysFlyBy

The tweaking numbers thing is golden, lol. I am probably gonna go that route. I don't know, as soon as I started eating again I stopped caring what I ate, or how much, or what the consequences were. I rarely binged before, now I'm bingeing all the time. I have completely lost my self discipline it seems. I'm trying to get it back and I just can't! Ugh. That's why I thought adding exercise calories back in might help because it used to be such a powerful motivator for me. :[

Noor13

But playing with the numbers should not stop you from taking care of what you eat.
I personally love to see my HRM show me my burn.
I do not care about the numbers on MFP.
Rather focus on your workout and get the most out of them. Push yourself over your limit-that gives more satisfaction than seeing calorie numbers changing.
Be consistent-that's the key and enjoy your workouts and good food

Cilenia

Or set yourself personal challenges. Like burn 2000 calories in a week, meet protein goals every day, get as close as possible to eating the calories you need to eat... whatever would challenge you

31prvrbs

Maybe you'd enjoy using a Fitbit, seeing as it sets the mini challenges where you are competing against yourself. Lots of numbers there, lol.

Or join Fitocracy (cheaper route, lol) for those same challenge features.. The whole concept of it is an ongoing fitness game that you play against yourself, you earn points, etc, for fitness related stuff you do... At least that could keep you focused on the fitness side of it, but still give you your #s for the fun aspect.



~Kiki

elly1979

What others said. Also, is focusing on the calorie metric critical? Can you get your high off a metric like, 2.5% increase each time you lift?

Or, can you get off on aiming for macros each day, and turn that into a game? I know for me that's a big challenge.

Think of it as retraining your brain

ironanimal

Get into lifting. See your weights go up. That's a ****ing awesome feeling.

Fairieluv77

A Fitbit might help you. Lots of numbers there. You have step goals, stair goals, mile goals, activity score goals. And you can sync it to Earndit.com that has challenges and you earn points for free stuff.

Rubyayn

OMG, I know exactly what you mean! I NEED to see my available calories go up as it really motivates me to workout. This is kind of tricky for a reset. I am doing a mini reset right now and am having a hard time with this as well. What I did was set my cals to 2100 as this is what I want to eat every single day for two weeks, but I still enter my workouts. I dont eat the calories back, but I do enjoy seeing the numbers on here and I think it helps motivate me. If or when I go back to more of a cut I usually set my goal to just above BMR and eat all my workout cals back. On my rest days I manuallly enter a workout and label it "calorie adjustment to meet -15%TDEE". I do this so I do not see anything, esp calories, in the red on my rest day if that makes sense. I find these two things to help me a lot. Good luck!

maltipink

I love my BMF...LOTS of analytical data there. I push myself harder constantly, because like you, I am a HUGE numbers person. I LOVE data! I get bored so easily and this has really helped me stay motivated

SweatpantsRebellion

I enter my workouts anyways, but I don't eat the extra calories unless my net is under BMR.

Also, so you're in week 6 of reset if I'm adding right? I don't know why, but many of us in the reset thread have hit a slump in weeks 5 and 6. I really struggled with a "Who cares?" attitude about food for about two weeks during my reset. It was rough! I'm just now getting through that hump as I head into my final week. You're so close to ending the reset and it can be really hard towards the end. There's no excitement anymore for measuring and/or weighing right now because there's not the gratification of losses right now.

I have used hackersdiet.com to chart my weight daily. That satisfies a numbers urge for me right now. I get excited when I see that my little ups and downs over the past four weeks or so are a plateau (since I know that's what's supposed to happen during the reset).

Good luck and hang in there!

DaysFlyBy

Thanks for all the awesome advice guys! What I did this morning was take my TDEE and subtract my average daily workout calories (roughly 400) and use the remaining number (1550) as my pseudo-goal so I can watch my exercise calories rack up and then gleefully eat them all back at the end of the day when I'm the most hungry. Today had been my happiest tracking day since starting my reset, oh it was glorious eating that big bowl of cottage cheese and pineapple knowing I'd earned every bite AND I still have almost 200 (+/-) to eat...oh decisions, decisions...what SHALL I eat next? ;D

KarenJanine

Great to hear you've found a method that works for you.

I think part of the key is finding a way to do this that suits your own lifestyle. The intention is to do this forever and if doing things a certain way doesn't work for you then it's not going to be easy to keep it up long term. But if you find a method that works for you and is enjoyable then you're onto a winner

I like numbers too so my little gadgets are a great way to have positive numbers to focus on like increasing my steps / weights lifted / calories burned etc. rather than obsessing about a number on the scale.