Can you count calories long term?

I've been counting for around 3-4 years using various different websites/apps. MFP is by far my preferred choice as it makes it so easy to log & doesn't seem like an inconvenience having to track daily.

I plan on tracking for the rest of my life & with using MFP I think it's certainly doable to track long term.

Without tracking I would easily start to gain the weight I've lost again.

Good luck with your journey

Ive logged my food for over 235 days now so a wee while. It becomes second nature and even if I'm busy during the day I'll make mental notes and log once I'm home. Eating out can be tricky but there are many foods in the database that are similar so I can normally estimate the calories there or for large food chains the calories are in the database. I love a Costa Coffee and their whole menu is in the database which is handy.

It's a great app and really couldn't have lost my weight without it plus I've learned so much in these forums.

Good luck to you!

Been logging for over a year. It starts as a chore but is now as much a part of my routine as cleaning my teeth. It takes a few minutes at most even on 'complex' days.

stick with it, and good luck with the journey.

I've been doing it since February and i find it really easy. I have the app on my phone which means i can add things whenever i have a few spare minutes.

I think once i get to maintenance then i'll still log but not stress as much if i miss a few days or anything like that.

I lasted a bit over one year and then quit. It was fun at first but got to be a chore. Sure enough, the pounds crept back on. I resisted as long as I dared to "get back into it" and just recently came back here to this website and have started counting again. And once again the pounds are coming off.

It seems as though I have to become almost obsessive about counting calories for me to watch my weight. Maybe for you it won't be like that. All you can do is find out. There sure are enough people on here as proof that it works and really helps us.

Good luck to you.

Art

Like anything else it has to be incorporated into your lifestyle to become a lifelong habit. I've been logging since May 2012, but watching calories for 2 years.

I think many people log because they are scared they will instantly get fat again. It depends how bad your relationship to food was/is. If you count and restrict with much effort, chances are that as soon as you stop, the scale is going to go up. But I found that I can maintain very well as long as I weigh foods, make mental notes in my head, and listen to my stomach. "Am I really hungry, or just bored?" etc. A good alternative is to log once you feel you are gaining again (after a 2kg gain for example) or periodically during the week. Feel you've been eating too much? Go count again for a day or two, to get your brain back on track.

Try different things and put some faith in your cognitive abilities. If you have used MFP properly, you will have learned why you got fat, you know your trigger foods, you know tricks to avoid binging, you know that one christmas dinner doesn't make you roll down the stairs. You know that moderation is the key, regardless of ideological views of veganism/vegetarianism/paleo/low carb whatever people believe works for them.

I'm in my third year of counting calories. Before MFP, I had tried to keep a written diary, but I wasn't consistent and had to look everything up. It was tedious. It is much easier as long as a tool is available.