To share or not to share your food journal

Meh, mine is open. I haven't gotten one unsolicited message and I eat quite dirty and often over calories.

Same here... I think I left mine open once when there was someone asking about what a 1400-1600 calorie intake looked like and just left it that way. I don't care about anyone who wants to judge me, I am often way over 1600 and that's okay with me.

Hey Michelle,
I was worried about sharing mine too... Do I really want to add those two extra drinks I had a t happy hour.??... But the app is made for us to improve. And the tediousness of adding things sometimes will steer me away from eating some things and this carries over to publicity as well. The added pressure has helped me make better choices.
I mean its not great everyday but if you are serious about improving your health then put yourself out there!
We are all learning one day at a time!
Courtney

Mine's public.

Even if I track an item of food or not, my body knows that I ate it. It's more important to me to keep my intake down to a moderate level than to worry what others think. But, being truthful, sometimes its the worry about what others will think that STOPS me stuffing my face, lol. Having the diary public at least sometimes makes me stop and think first.

i don't share. mine is for me personally and to know where i went wrong. i don't need other peoples 2 cents when everyone is different.

Nope, no one else's business in my opinion.

i don't share. mine is for me personally and to know where i went wrong. i don't need other peoples 2 cents when everyone is different.

^^^^^I keep mine private also ^^^^^

I have gone back and forth on this. I am about 3 months into my weight loss journey on MFP. At first I thought it was no one's business but my own and I would never comment or look at other diaries. I go over quite often, don't eat perfect, and I like to have a drink or three occasionally. Then I got curious about what others were logging and interested in how open they were with their food. So, I stared checking out their food diaries. That's when I decided to open mine to friends. It felt like I was hiding or cheating keeping it closed and I am trying to change my feelings about food. No one is perfect and we are all doing this for ourselves, if you feel like having it closed than that is your business. When you feel comfortable about it, open it up. I have not gotten any feedback but positive and if I did get some, I think, as stated by others, I would just delete them as my 'friends". Good luck!

I say log it all and keep your diary open. You can also lock it with a key and only give the key to people you feel like you trust. For me, if you are really serious about losing weight or getting healthy, there's not a lot of reason to hide it. If you have friends that are judgmental, delete them!

I personally won't add people who have closed diaries. I am putting my heart and soul in my diaries...good, bad, and ugly. I feel cheated if my friend can't share with me their struggles like I am sharing mine.

I share mine. It helps to get ideas for menus from other people and if I'm looking at theirs I don't mind if they see mine :blushing: I know I've shared recipes etc after people have viewed my diary and vice versa. No-one judges but if they do everyone's entitled to their opinion however it's my decision at the end of the day to let their judgements get to me...and I choose not to.

You don't have to share if you're scared. But you need to learn not to care what others think. Particularly most people don't care what we eat anyways.

Screw what other people think, as long as you're sticking to your calorie goal, you're winning

I keep mine private. I prefer to be brutally honest with myself, and don't want the temptation to omit or fudge less-wise items. If I eat it, I log it. I also log quickly from my phone when I'm traveling. Some of those entries may be the first thing that comes up and I go back later and find better matches.

Mine is only open to my friends, not because I'm worried about what people will say about what I eat, but because I've already received a few disturbing messages through MFP in just a couple of months on the site, so I don't see any need to be more open.

More importantly, I think we're all prone to sharing TMI on the Internet without realizing how it can be used. Many people on MFP have a user name that appears to include parts of their actual names, many reveal in message board posts what country, state, or city they live in, and many have photos that could be used to identify them through facial recognition technology (the kind that Facebook uses to automatically tag you in photos on other people's pages). There are companies that are in the business of gathering every scrap of data they can about individuals online and off, connecting the information about you from all these sources, and reselling it. Do you want current and future employers knowing how often, how much, and when you drink? Do you want insurance companies knowing exactly what you're eating, any health concerns you might have mentioned anywhere on MFP, etc.? Then there are less reputable data miners who can make good guesses about when you're traveling based on changes in your eating pattern. Are you someone who generally only logs one or two meals a week of restaurant food, and now all of a sudden you're logging three meals a day from restaurants? Now they know your house is empty. (Or maybe you save them the detective work by mentioning that you're going on vacation and asking for advice in the message boards on how to stay on course with your calories and macros.)

I'm on a high protein, vlcd. I'm skipping the peanut gallery and keeping mine private I would love more friends though because I do enjoy seeing other's success!

I have nothing to hide. Anyone can look at my food diary. They will quickly become bored and leave.