Women that don't live by calories- are you out there?

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  • birdieaz
    birdieaz Posts: 448 Member
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    At this point that wouldn't work for me. Even though I'm at my first goal weight, not logging would probably cause me to eat less. I'm trying to mindful to not fall back into a low calorie rut, and my tendency is to forget to eat. That may sound weird but if I get stressed or busy food is the last thing on my mind. Maybe when I've been at a higher calorie level for longer it will feel ok to not log.

    In your case though it seems you have a healthy grasp on your bodies needs so I say take that break.
  • JacquiKerzman
    JacquiKerzman Posts: 25
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    I for sure take breaks!! As a professional athlete I need to know what I have going in because I train so heavily but FOR SURE when I have a few weeks off in between events I take a breather to relax my mind . I like to know what is going in my body as well BUT moderation is key to everything :-0
  • trophywife24
    trophywife24 Posts: 1,472 Member
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    My plan after I get to goal is to log until I have a good understanding what my calories to maintain my weight are and then I will probably occasionally log just to see how I'm doing.

    If I'm gaining, I'll go back to logging. Right now I feel like logging is a habit for me..... I do take a day or two off here or there- when I get too obsessive about it, I step away for a little bit. I don't feel like I will have to be a life-long logger, and hopefully I'll be right about that. I don't mind but I also don't like to think about food that much, haha :)
  • opuntia
    opuntia Posts: 860 Member
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    Personally, I don't find it useful to count calories. I've lost weight over the past year without counting calories - I tend to know intuitively what foods are healthy for me, and I listen to my body. For me, what has made the most difference to my body is doing occasional fasts, and starting to do strength exercises. Occasional fasts help me become a lot more in tune with my body - I'm trying the 5:2 fasting thing now that there was a BBC documentary about it, but that seems a bit too regimented for me (and again involves counting calories, which I don't like). I think the fasts I just did naturally were probably best for me.

    I do like to keep track of my food, but not in terms of calories - I like to take photos of all I eat and keep a photo blog. That makes me a lot more mindful about what I eat. I do keep track of my food here with the food diary, and have been doing so regularly for about a month, but I don't find it helpful - and it can be a bit of a hindrance at times, because when I see my food intake in terms of numbers, it stops me trusting my intuition and I become confused.
  • brimarie95
    brimarie95 Posts: 81 Member
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    bump for later.
  • bodiva88
    bodiva88 Posts: 308 Member
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    I have a friend who just reached her goal. And her first reaction was to say "How am I going to eat 500 more calories a day?" Now she's really struggling with the balance of maintenance. So she's still logging everything.

    I've lost more than 100 lbs twice. And gained more than that back twice. I like the structure and reinforcement of logging. It makes me feel much less stressed about eating and much more satisfied with exercising (immediate positive reinforcement). I look forward to always logging and seeing the balance. It gives me the confidence that I can and will get to a healthy weight and this time be able to maintain it.
  • TXGirl821
    TXGirl821 Posts: 115
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    I don't live COMPLETELY by the calorie number because it makes me crazy. I will log my food for a few days but when I find myself slipping back into that "Let me play a game here with these numbers" mindset, I know it's no longer healthy to log my food. I have a ton of weight to lose still, but I know approximately what I can and cannot eat in a day at this point, and food is not my biggest issue - exercise is!
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
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    I started a topic similar to this a few months ago but the search function isn't that useful!

    The issue is whether you'll really be eating the right amount. As someone said, you eat 100 calories over and you'll start putting it back on. That's how we started. As for eating intuitively, I guess I did that before and only when I logged it, I realised I was eating about 1200 a day which is too little for me. Is there anyone out there who is lean and eating intuitively... and not even exercising?

    Another issue is that you said you still binge but know how to deal with it afterwards; if you don't log things, how will you know how much you binged with? As an aside, I'd speak to a therapist about why you need to binge. (I say this in a non-judgemental fashion.)
  • m1311
    m1311 Posts: 103 Member
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    It's really nice to see the variety of answers here. I have hit my goal weight and mostly stopped logging, but went back just this week to log a day because I went up a pound. It turned out that I was fine, and it went back down again.

    That said, this summer, I had to take off three weeks from logging because of various trips, and it turned out that MFP has taught me how to eat smart. I kept losing at the same rate. I think that once you know how to do it, you really can almost feel when you're at your limit for the day, and paying attention to your body is probably a better way to learn to control it than always logging in. Unfortunately, in the past, I might have been able to hear the "words" coming from my body, but I sure didn't listen. We'll see whether the stress of a school year can interfere with what I've learned.

    As long as things are going well, I won't be here often, but I will check occasionally to make sure my sugars are low and my protein is high enough. Whoever said that about protein, ditto!

    Besides, I love this community. It's a wonderful place for support.
  • AshleyNicolexo_
    AshleyNicolexo_ Posts: 27
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    I'm a whole foods eater (nothing processed.. just food that comes from nature) and i HATE counting calories. I like to use MFP mainly to log in my workouts and some days i will log in what i eat but i never follow the "calories" that MFP tells me but anyway, by eating whole foods i dont believe in counting calories. I always seem to do better and lose weight when i dont count them and i've lost weight by eating like 3000 calories of whole foods before. Plus, i believe that its unhealthy to obsess with counting calories. If you work out and eat healthy then you'll be fine.
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
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    I'm a whole foods eater (nothing processed.. just food that comes from nature) and i HATE counting calories. I like to use MFP mainly to log in my workouts and some days i will log in what i eat but i never follow the "calories" that MFP tells me but anyway, by eating whole foods i dont believe in counting calories. I always seem to do better and lose weight when i dont count them and i've lost weight by eating like 3000 calories of whole foods before. Plus, i believe that its unhealthy to obsessed with counting calories. If you work out and eat healthy then you'll be fine.

    Interesting. How much do you exercise a day on average? I know someone who does cycling competitions and eats absolutely anything he wants and is completely ripped!
  • AshleyNicolexo_
    AshleyNicolexo_ Posts: 27
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    I'm a whole foods eater (nothing processed.. just food that comes from nature) and i HATE counting calories. I like to use MFP mainly to log in my workouts and some days i will log in what i eat but i never follow the "calories" that MFP tells me but anyway, by eating whole foods i dont believe in counting calories. I always seem to do better and lose weight when i dont count them and i've lost weight by eating like 3000 calories of whole foods before. Plus, i believe that its unhealthy to obsessed with counting calories. If you work out and eat healthy then you'll be fine.

    Interesting. How much do you exercise a day on average? I know someone who does cycling competitions and eats absolutely anything he wants and is completely ripped!

    i exercise maybe an hour a day 5 days a week.. usually i run on the treadmill for a half hour (i'm a slow runner so thats about 2 and half miles for me) and then i do a circuit training workout (Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred or Bob Harpers Bootcamp workouts) and I recently started lifting weights again (i was never really good at that lol)
  • marthathebear
    marthathebear Posts: 498
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    Sounds like a great idea. You sound like a disciplined woman who knows her body. You will be able to tell how you're doing. You've trained yourself. I hope I get to that point someday. Good luck and have a great time.
  • opuntia
    opuntia Posts: 860 Member
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    Another issue is that you said you still binge but know how to deal with it afterwards; if you don't log things, how will you know how much you binged with? As an aside, I'd speak to a therapist about why you need to binge. (I say this in a non-judgemental fashion.)

    May I ask, out of curiosity, why is it important to know how much you binged by? I binge sometimes too, on crisps (potato chips). I don't need to see a therapist, because I know why I binge - it's a sensory thing, because of being on the autism spectrum. I have various strategies I've worked out, but still, I don't always use all my strategies, and so I binge occasionally, because the sensory crunching experience of crisps is amazing! Since I've been using MFP, I now know how much I binged by, but it has made no practical difference to my life whatsoever to have this knowledge. When I have eaten too much, the next day my body knows it and I naturally don't want to eat so much.

    Something I wonder too - in the history of humankind, the counting of calories is a very new thing. For centuries before us, humans were eating and not counting calories. Were their eating habits a lot more unhealthy as a result?
  • greedygirl118
    greedygirl118 Posts: 37
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    I go for long periods without logging, and only return to it if my weight creeps up a little, for example after a holiday, or Christmas period. My weight is actually pretty constant at around 10.5 stone (I am 5'8, so that's a healthy weight for me). I'd like to lose that last seven pounds of "vanity" weight, so am logging for the moment, but will stop next week when I go on vacation for a fortnight.
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
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    I'm a whole foods eater (nothing processed.. just food that comes from nature) and i HATE counting calories. I like to use MFP mainly to log in my workouts and some days i will log in what i eat but i never follow the "calories" that MFP tells me but anyway, by eating whole foods i dont believe in counting calories. I always seem to do better and lose weight when i dont count them and i've lost weight by eating like 3000 calories of whole foods before. Plus, i believe that its unhealthy to obsessed with counting calories. If you work out and eat healthy then you'll be fine.

    Interesting. How much do you exercise a day on average? I know someone who does cycling competitions and eats absolutely anything he wants and is completely ripped!

    i exercise maybe an hour a day 5 days a week.. usually i run on the treadmill for a half hour (i'm a slow runner so thats about 2 and half miles for me) and then i do a circuit training workout (Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred or Bob Harpers Bootcamp workouts) and I recently started lifting weights again (i was never really good at that lol)

    Cool. As long as you keep that up, then all is well. What happens when you go without exercise for a week? Do you taper off the food intake?
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
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    Another issue is that you said you still binge but know how to deal with it afterwards; if you don't log things, how will you know how much you binged with? As an aside, I'd speak to a therapist about why you need to binge. (I say this in a non-judgemental fashion.)

    May I ask, out of curiosity, why is it important to know how much you binged by? I binge sometimes too, on crisps (potato chips). I don't need to see a therapist, because I know why I binge - it's a sensory thing, because of being on the autism spectrum. I have various strategies I've worked out, but still, I don't always use all my strategies, and so I binge occasionally, because the sensory crunching experience of crisps is amazing! Since I've been using MFP, I now know how much I binged by, but it has made no practical difference to my life whatsoever to have this knowledge. When I have eaten too much, the next day my body knows it and I naturally don't want to eat so much.

    Something I wonder too - in the history of humankind, the counting of calories is a very new thing. For centuries before us, humans were eating and not counting calories. Were their eating habits a lot more unhealthy as a result?

    It's a fair question. Most people don't have autism and there's usually another reason for the eating disorder; a good therapist can help them with this so they no longer binge eat. As for the amount, I've seen people post they binge with 5,000+ calories in a day (someone I know posted they ate 20,000! (I don't know if they later purged or not.)). There's a serious issue there that can be dealt with by seeking a therapist.

    In answer to your second question, we've never had so much food. More people in the world are obese than starving apparently.
  • LadyIntrepid
    LadyIntrepid Posts: 399 Member
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    At maintenance, I don't log. I have a pretty good idea of what I can eat, and I keep up my full exercise program. I weight weekly and as soon as I go over maintenance (I allow myself a three-pound spread), even by an ounce, I go back to counting and very quickly get back to my maintenance range. I've only gone over once since hitting goal (about 2 months ago), so it's working well for me. I think what's key is not to go crazy crazy with the food (keep those lifestyle changes) and continue to work out as much and as hard as ever -- even harder as I get stronger.
  • Faye_Anderson
    Faye_Anderson Posts: 1,495 Member
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    Im only 53% of the way to my goal...but stopping the counting is what has failed me in the past. So I will for the rest of my life log what I eat. Did you know that over eating by 100 calories a day can make you gain 10 lbs in a year? Obviously when I reach goal, I'll eat more because I wont be trying to lose weight anymore, but I'm still going to log it.

    Overeating 100 calories over MAINTENANCE will make you gain the weight, you're eating 1200 a day, if you ate 1300 you would still lose :flowerforyou:
  • aura100
    aura100 Posts: 23 Member
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    dont know if anyone says the same thing didnt bother to read the other posts lol but im almost at myyy goal and i find that i get full really fast now anyways so im not even hungry so i dont over eat there...second all i eat is heathly food now and water so yeah i kinda just make a meal that i know is heathly i have only a few meals to pick from and just eat it or eat healthy snacks and im losing weight pretty fast still ..I guess if you know what your doing you already know the calories of the food so yeah i wouldnt bother tracking it only if your confident that you wont mess it up but if itsonly for a week or whatever that you cant track it dont worryabout it ! <3 good luck

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