Why divide food diary into breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks?

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unknownsample
unknownsample Posts: 10
in Health and Weight Loss
New to MFP after trying and disliking MyNetDiary.

Everything seems really clear and intuitive, with one exception: I'm unclear on the purpose of separating food into "Breakfast," "Lunch," "Dinner," and "Snacks." Near as I can tell, a calorie is a calorie. Trying to decide whether brunch qualifies as "Breakfast" or "Lunch" seems incredibly pointless. Is there some benefit to this scheme that I am not perceiving? Thanks in advance.

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  • krisiepoo
    krisiepoo Posts: 710 Member
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    It helps me understand what I'm eating and when. I have breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner. It's a mind thing for me. If you don't want them, go to your settings and change them
  • Cdn_Dot
    Cdn_Dot Posts: 53 Member
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    It allows you to see accurately how you divided your food out during the day and if there were any times where you were really hungry so you can add more food to the plan.
    I broke mine down to morning snacks and afternoon snacks and might get rid of the after supper snack and add a second morning snack. I have 2 breaks in the morning at work and snack at each one. :laugh:
  • aflane
    aflane Posts: 625 Member
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    It's just divided to help you keep track. It's easier to remember what was for breakfast, than to remember to include everything in a long list. It would be easier to miss tracking an item in a long list, but easy to remember what was specifically for lunch.
  • emgel9
    emgel9 Posts: 218 Member
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    This is customizable. You can change your "categories" of meals or just have one giant category. A lot of people like to see how many calories they average at different meals (or how much protein they average after a workout, etc...); and for people who pre-log their food (like me) it can help you plan out your day. If you don't like it, just customize it to your preference.
  • stines72
    stines72 Posts: 853 Member
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    when i go over my day it would be confusing to jumble through a long list of stuff
  • hastinbe
    hastinbe Posts: 130 Member
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    It's just a way of organizing. Instead of seeing a giant list of items, you can break it down to how or when you consumed those items. It can also help if you want to copy say breakfast from the day before in a new diary entry.

    I also use it to plan my meals in advance.

    Edit: stines72 you have amazing abs, nice work
  • stellabobella79
    stellabobella79 Posts: 44 Member
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    It helps me see how many calories I'm having per meal. I'm visual so I helps me not overdo it early in the day. It also helps to look back on the days that I felt stronger and see if having a bigger breakfast or bigger lunch helps me plan out the type of eating lifestyle that I will be most successful with.
  • stumblinthrulife
    stumblinthrulife Posts: 2,558 Member
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    There's value to it in certain circumstances. My wife is on a low sodium diet, for example, but must also ensure that the sodium isn't concentrated at any particular point in the day. By separating out what she eats, and making food notes whenever she is sick, it helps pinpoint the cause.

    Some people also just like to spread their calories out during the day, rather than just know how many they ate.

    Some people go so far as to customize the categories to 6am - 7am, 7am - 8am, 8am - 9am, and so on.

    It all depends what you want to get out of the diary and what you want to use it for.
  • bokodasu
    bokodasu Posts: 629 Member
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    The other thing it does is makes the recent/frequent foods more useful for most people - if you always have the same thing when you get up, it'll be right at the top of your "breakfast" foods and you don't have to go searching around for it.

    One thing I've seen some people do, and I wish I had done this earlier but am too lazy to change now, is change their categories to stuff like "meat", "vegetables", "snacks" - makes the sorting really quick. (Although probably not so good if you only log once a day and are trying to remember each meal.)
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
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    You can log any way you want. If you like one big jumble of food then just log it all in one place. The headings are customizable so you can make it whatever you want it to be.
  • kelly_e_montana
    kelly_e_montana Posts: 1,999 Member
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    I have mine set to 6 meals per day. I just like to know when I'm eating stuff.
  • JSheehy1965
    JSheehy1965 Posts: 404
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    you can change the titles of breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks to anything you want to put in.
  • GrEyedRose
    GrEyedRose Posts: 90 Member
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    I eat 5 meals a day and just log them as 3 and snacks. The meal names don't really mean anything to me, I just log the food.

    You can go into SETTINGS under MY HOME and you can change the names and amounts of meals to anything you want.
  • Mads1997
    Mads1997 Posts: 1,494 Member
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    I like to have it broken up so I know exactly how much I can eat for my 3 meals and 3 snacks. This way I am less likely to binge.
  • Jossome
    Jossome Posts: 1
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    Helps ration your meals out better. To see it as different groups maybe will help gain a routine in which will help further your process. A lot of weightloss is about your mentality. This I believe is just a tool to help people see where they may have weaknesses and room for improving how and what they eat. :) Plus having to fill out so much helps keep you cautious. Good Luck!!
  • asarwe
    asarwe Posts: 73 Member
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    I divide mine into time intervals instead. I have 6-12, 12-16, 16-20, 20-24. On the rare occasion I eat between midnight and 6 in the morning I log it into the last or first depending on whether it is before or after sleeping. This works great for me, since I too found the proposed meals confusing, and wanted to keep track of when I snack.
  • ValerieMartini2Olives
    ValerieMartini2Olives Posts: 3,024 Member
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    I changed my meals a long time ago into one generic category called "Food Goes in Mouth." It makes all my friends laugh and it makes it 110% easier to configure my foods and edit what I eat. I noticed a couple of my friends deleted all their meal categories and went for the one lump category.
  • unknownsample
    unknownsample Posts: 10
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    Thanks for the responses all. I'll keep it for now and customize if needed.

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