Getting myself to feel accountable again..

SuzieZimm

I've recently rebooted my MFP usage. I was super loyal all throughout the first half of the year, and did very well. But in June I left the US to go study in Morocco, where I didn't concentrate on MFP or my weight too much to instead focus on enjoying my experience and my studies.
Now I'm in France, where it's a little easier to maintain my MFP log on a daily basis, but I've lost that guilt feeling of not logging something properly, or opting to not log something at all.
I'll let myself taste some yummy beignets, but when I go to log it into my diary, I look for the equivalent in the database that's not as calorie-dense, or I'll fudge how much I ate so that I have a few calories left over at the end of the day...things like that. In the beginning, I was pretty honest about logging, and honestly it was the guilty feeling of having to log bad food that kept me from eating it. Now I just feel like a sneak, and I'm hindering any results.

Any recommendations on how to get myself to monitor my habits better? Or how to regain that feeling of honesty when logging? I want to be held accountable for sincere logging.
Basically I just need a reboot!

Also, please excuse my funky English...on my program we're not allowed to speak it. Only French. So even typing English feels really weird..

bufger

first of all you have a very cool lifestyle!!!

Now there is no way to do this except pick a day (tomorrow is ideal) and challenge yourself on every entry, read every packet and put those calories down. if you go over you need to offset with exercise or another better day in the week. Its your week average you want to get on target and not necessarily your daily target.

Dont punish yourself too much for it if you do go over so you'll be less likely to lie to yourself.

You'll also be better of adding individual ingredients and making them into meals you record as you're in france. Lots of the combinations there wont be already recorded.

I would say good luck but you dont need luck so go out and do it and day 1 is tomorrow.

SuzieZimm

I can definitely try that. Hopefully a few days of extreme details in logging will get me back into the mindset that every bite counts.

And yes, the issue is mostly finding the foods in the database and having to settle on something that looks close enough...which is where the fudging comes in, generally. Most days I'm without computer until dinner time, so saving food packaging to enter the details is a little....off-putting. As a concession I've started bring things to school that are simple and easy to log: a tin of tuna, an apple, a Babybell, etc.

jakiram

I really feel your pain. After losing 30 pounds the first six months, there isn´t that much "enthusiasm" in my food tracking. Now that I have gained 3 pounds I try to shock myself to do this accurately. I still want to lose another 30 pounds. I live in Europe and at first it was difficult to find foods in the database.... I have added hundreds of products to the database, but I have also noticed that there are finally other users in my country and someone else is also feeding the database. Try to look for foods in french and I bet you´ll find some! I actually try to find foods first in my own language (finnish) then in swedish and then in english. The measurements are easier to both calculate and estimate in my own kilos and litres, but as a former exchangestudent I´m using american measurements as well if I find a product that I´m looking for.

Don´t give up - I won´t either. All these are just excuses for eating more - if you really want to stick to the MFP programme you certainly can! Good luck!