Closed diary's

I keep mine closed because what I am doing is working for me, and I do not want or need any criticism or advice. Negativity is not something that I can handle very well.

What I am eating, may or may not help anyone else. I am not qualified to offer advice to anyone. If they asked me, I would probably tell them, but, next week is my 1 year anniversary, and no one has asked me yet.

I keep mine open, I'm an open book and extremely honest. I'm human, I make mistakes, and sometimes I'm on the money. Its all a trial run

Just a quick observation , I love looking at the success stories . And the one thing that sticks out is 2/3 of the people have closed diary's ? Why is this ? Surely an open diary would help other MFP people ?
Is there a reason why ?

I've been on MFP for over a year now and I used to weight and measure EVERYTHING. Now I can determine how much a chicken breast weighs without putting it on the scale. I can put a cup of veggies on the plate w/o pulling out a single measuring cup. So, I pretty much know if i'm eating within my calorie limits. So most days I don't log or I'll only log when I eat something out of the norm, so basically, it's for my own information and no one else's.

Perhaps those people don't feel they need to expose everything to people...they came here to help themselves...not necessarily to help and guide everyone else.

Diary shame! I have it everytime I go way over but I keep it open anyway. Just because you go over a few times a week doesnt mean you wont have progress over time, it will just happen slower.

I understand that some people do have friends on here that they actually know in *real* life, so would be different for them, but...mostly people on here are anonymous to each other. All of my friends have 'open' diaries and they are good, they are bad some days. It helps me to be accountable to other than myself and also lets me see that I am not the only one when I have a fail day. We all comment on each others dairies to encourage.

If I were to receive any critical comment from them I would consider it, as having chosen my friends list very carefully, I know it would have been said in a positive way.

I have had learned so much from seeing what other people eat and how they manage their macros etc and I hope that my diary has done the same for other people.

Each to their own.

NAILED IT!

I used to have mine only open to friends... then I decided to just make it public. I was afraid of the "food nazis" commenting on what I eat (too my much processed foods, high sodium foods, etc), but then I realized I have kept 100+ pounds off for nearly three years, so I must be doing something right!

I guess I finally don't care what people think about my eating habits. I eat fairly good, but I do indulge quite a bit too because I know that if I don't enjoy my favorite foods on occasions, that will be my downfall. Like everyone else, I have good days and bad days. And I track everything I eat, every day... even on my worst days!

I keep mine open because people have asked me what I ate to get as far as I have with weight loss. I have had pals who chose to close theirs because they were going on a fad diet, were in a funk, didn't want negative comments, or they thought that they couldn't be an 'honest' logger and improve their diet, if it was open. I hate to admit it, but I have skipped logging a few 'bad' things because mine is open and I didn't want to set a bad example. I am totally honest now though.

What is the real purpose of logging anyway? It's to realize what we are eating, learn how to improve our diets, stay within calorie goals to gain, lose or maintain weight, log exercise for goals, etc.

Anyway, it's not my business if someone's is closed or not, so I don't care. If it works for them, that is what matters.

Mine is open, but I sure understand why people close theirs! I use names for recipes that only mean something to ME....It never occured to me until recently that other people might look at it and say OMG! I can't believe that! But alas.....they do.....I still don't really give a rats behind because just because a recipe might be NAMED "Steaming pile of poo", doesn't mean it contains ANY poo whatsoever! lol Some people seem to be VERY concerned about others though! lol

I keep mine open. So far haven't found a reason to make it private. I have found ideas and recipes from other open diaries that I am thankful for.

I'm a very private person in general. I log for myself. I don't think I could handle any judgments given or don't care to give others "permission" to eat as I do. I get enough of that from my mother. I've just kept with the mantra from yoga to keep my eyes on my own mat. I don't know where others are in their journey and they don't know where I am. What's fine for me, right now, may not be best for anyone else.

Actually it's one of the reasons I had gained my weight back from losing the 60 lbs the first time years ago. The judgments just affect me too much nor do I have the "magic beans" for those that aren't accepting to hear that I lost weight from portion control and exercise. That was from folks I knew offline.

If I had a specific question I would open it but promptly close it again once I had those suggestions. In most cases, I won't be asking but lurk the boards to see if others had a similar question.

I am a private person. Nuff said.

Reasons mine is closed now:

Hypercritical people

I don't want encouragement from other people about what I'm eating. I know that what I'm eating is working.

I practice IF and so some days, my calories are very, very low and some days they are well over. I don't want to hear about it.

At some point I found myself forcing myself to eat more on days I was under and not logging some foods on days that I went over. My weight loss slowed for a couple weeks in a row. I set it to private and am only logging for myself so I am brutally honest and back to not worrying about about whether each day looks "pretty" as long as the weekly average is good.

To avoid unsolicited advice from people who are probably far less successful.

My diary is closed to all except my friends. And my friends are only people who I actually know in real life. Those are the people who I know love me, know me well, and are the people I don't mind commenting on my diary. Other people don't know me so their advice may not fit me.

I'm a private person in some sense... so I just don't like letting random people be my friend on here. I have no problem commenting on posts - because I CHOOSE to comment on the post and reveal that information. I don't like the ideas of rando's just looking at my diary and me not knowing.... so hence closed.