What if you fail to enter some Meals of on MFP?

There are two reasons to log: to guide your eating for the day and to have a long term record of what's going on.

To guide your eating for the day, remember everything you can and log it. You'll probably remember most of it and you'll get better with practice. You'll remember that if you had a burger you probably had a roll, ketchup, onion, tomato, letucce, and pickle. You'll remember you had dressing if you had a salad. It also helps to imagine your plate and systematically ask yourself what you drank, whether you used fork, spoon, knife, etc.

If you do that, you'll be close on your calories and just undershoot a little.

As you use MFP longer you'll get into the habit of both remembering and logging.

If I'm really bad and eat something unusual I may even snap it with my cell phone so I can remember later.

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I would NOT ever erase. The only negative effects partial logging has is on giving you a bad estimate of that day so you eat too much and messing up your weekly journal. Once the day is over the mis-estimation doesn't matter. I personally do like the weekly log a lot. I think estimating the missed meals as I said above it much better than erasing. And practice makes perfect.

I log throught the day as I eat. I don't have incomplete entries. I may "wing it" on things I get at restaurants or parties or whatever, so the entry may not be the exact info for what I actually consumed, but it's always listed. Maybe try that? Or add in a wild guesstimate with quick cals? I don't think a food diary holds a lot of value unless it actually contains all the food you ate (in one form or another).

I have never thought of erasing partial days. (And I don't think that would help weekly reports either). I am also of the mindset that it's best to log as I go, so I know if I can have that second serving at dinner. I've seen too many people with the "oops, I was over again" issue by waiting till the end of the day. (I've added the MFP app to my phone to help me log when I'm not home). And like someone else said, what really matters is what you've eaten, not what the computer says. The only reason why I would care about looking back at weekly reports was if my weight loss stalled and I couldn't figure out why -- then seeing weekly reports my give me insight about what I need to change.

At the bottom of your food log there is a place for notes. You can always add "incomplete day" to those notes. For me, it's pretty apparent, though, because unless I'm really sick, a day without dinner logged, or more than 200 calories under my goal, is going to incomplete :laugh:

I don't really "miss" meals or fail to enter them, but when eating out or at someone else's house, I have no idea how they've prepared the food. At those times, I quick add calories and just conservatively WAG it. That's what I'd recommend as far as a "best practice"; it's the "as well as I can do it" practice, I suppose.

Most people rage quit when this happens. Do not let this happen to you. You can do this. :flowerforyou:

^^^ I agree with this.

I often sit with my notebook the day before and start to write down what I plan to eat/amounts. My food is mostly already logged for today, with some food pre-logged for tomorrow too.

I have a feeling that I'm a bid weird as I totally plan what I am going to eat for the day either the day before or first thing in the morning. I then prepare my meals (weighing everything properly - I never eyeball) and then update my food diary accordingly.

Ditto. I'll often do it the night before, as I assess what is left in fridge and in the pantry after dinner.

That's not weird, that's being prepared.

There is no way to know exactly every single calorie you have - even if you weigh it, or eat an exact serving of something. You may still be a couple calories off one way or the other.

What do you do if you go to a friend's house for dinner? You can guesstimate and either put something close to it, or guesstimate the calories.

Today I went to the apple orchard. Sounds healthy, right? Until I ate the Apple Cider Doughnut, the Caramel Pumpkin Latte, and all the samples that they have around. I logged the Doughnut and Coffee then guessed at the samples. I may be off, but at least it is something.

Some people plan the day before, but I log as the day goes on because if i have a craving, I want to be able to satisfy it somehow. I have noticed that I am getting better at being able to predict my day and about how many calories I have consumed, but I still log it to be accountable.