Do you ever "graduate" from MFP?

emAZn · September 2013

This is for the long timers out there... What happens when you meet your goal, maintain your goal, maybe set new goals, meet and maintain those, maybe set a fitness goal, meet that... What I am getting at is do you gain the tools necessary eventually to live your life without MFP and counting/tracking calories every day?

I love MFP and it has helped me mentally and physically understand my body and my eating habits. I started using MFP on a vlcd and lost a bunch of weight (over 40 lbs) and also developed a really unhealthy relationship with food. I'm now using a modified TDEE system (maintaining-slowly losing) and am much happier but am working on the whole mental food thing, moderation, ect. I am happy to see progress in this area as well so it makes me wonder... What happens when I reach my goals physically and mentally?

james6998 · September 2013

don't stop making goals that's the key does progressing

cwolfman13 · September 2013

I maintained for a good 5 months or so without logging or anything. I stuck around here to be sure because I have some pretty awesome friends and I can always turn to them, particularly for fitness advise.

Something you have to keep in mind is that there is no finish line...people are all in a hurry and racing towards some arbitrary finish line when they hit their goal...those are the ones that just gain their weight back. You never finish...you can always be better...you can always be more fit...you can always be stronger and faster, etc. There is no finish line.

emAZn · September 2013

Thanks wolfman, I'm not looking for a finish line, except at my next race

and I love the MFP support here, I have some friends online I like better than my real life friends

I'm just so dependent on logging everything to make sure I'm under and hitting my macros. I wonder if I'm too dependend and learning how to make real life choices with out the help of the online calculator. Might be interesting to track my food on a piece of paper for a couple days, then log it later to see how close I am.

shannashannabobana · September 2013

I think the ideal is to not have to track daily for the rest of your life. If you are maintaining, the biggest thing for me is to just make sure you are maintaining - ie, weighing, watching your clothes, etc.. If you start to gain, stopping it early is much better than all of a sudden realizing you're up 20 pounds.

cwolfman13 · September 2013

Thanks wolfman, I'm not looking for a finish line, except at my next race and I love the MFP support here, I have some friends online I like better than my real life friends I'm just so dependent on logging everything to make sure I'm under and hitting my macros. I wonder if I'm too dependend and learning how to make real life choices with out the help of the online calculator. Might be interesting to track my food on a piece of paper for a couple days, then log it later to see how close I am.

When I went to maintenance I logged for about 4 weeks just to see what that looked like...what my meals and snacks looked like, etc. Then I just stopped and basically tallied everything mentally and made sure I was keeping track of my weight...I maintained pretty easily and I'm sure there were days I was under and days that I was over. I gave myself a spot check every once in awhile and I was usually pretty close.

Part of this whole thing for me was learning how to eat...what my portions should look like, etc....no intentions of logging for an eternity, I don't think that's really a sustainable thing. I'm currently logging again with my MFP goal set to maintain but giving myself a small deficit just with exercise to try and drop about 5-10 more pounds...purely vanity, I want my obliques to pop.

ErikN · September 2013

Yeah, I graduated. Then I got sent back to remedial MFP.

Do you ever "graduate" from MFP?

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