What's your process for logging?
calajane
Posts: 52
Logging your intake accurately is important and planning ahead what you're going to eat helps as well. How do you go about it? I'm curious about people's processes.
Do you log your food ahead of time as you plan the next day's meals (if that's the case, do you adjust the numbers on the day of eating?)
Do you log your food as you prepare the meals on the day of?
How often do you just estimate how much you've eaten and is it usually when you're eating out?
Personally, I rarely plan my meals ahead of time, unless I have leftovers and I try to log food as I'm preparing it. The biggest problem for me is estimating how much I've eaten when I eat out or eat at my family's (where I"m usually not involved in food prepariations and portioning).
Do you log your food ahead of time as you plan the next day's meals (if that's the case, do you adjust the numbers on the day of eating?)
Do you log your food as you prepare the meals on the day of?
How often do you just estimate how much you've eaten and is it usually when you're eating out?
Personally, I rarely plan my meals ahead of time, unless I have leftovers and I try to log food as I'm preparing it. The biggest problem for me is estimating how much I've eaten when I eat out or eat at my family's (where I"m usually not involved in food prepariations and portioning).
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I often prelog two or three days ahead (except on the weekend).
It is not set in stone and can be changed easily...
I don't estimate unless it is at a resturant that does not have nutrional values available.
If I am at a family members house I take my scale with me...it's not a big deal to them...
The reason I prelog is it makes me staying in my calorie goal and hit my macros. Makes life easier too this way there is no getting up in the morning and trying to figure out what I am having for breakfast and reminds me to take food out of the freezer.0 -
My answer is exactly the same as stefs.
I log what I'm craving one or two days ahead and try to hit my macros.
The day of I will adjust with more accurate weights. I will also probably add a bit here and there if I forgot condiments or want a snack before bed.
Usually I work evenings and I eat dinner with clients so I will just use cup measurements with them, but its usually the meat so I won't eat too much of it.
When I'm at a family dinner I ask my gramma to tell me exactly what's in her recipe and make it from there. Her lasagna is like 1000 cals, geez gramma
Restaurants I use their nutrition guide and if hhere isn't one, like the sushi place, I just log based on the entries here and take it as a treat day.0 -
Same as above. The only time I don't like it is days like today. I still do it but if you look at my diary right now, I am WAY over. But I am doing ski patrol today and know from experience that I will still have to add nearly 1000 cals when I get home tonight because my net will be so low. I just don't like to see myself so far in the red!0
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I pre-log. My breakfast is almost always the same thing so I already always know what that's going to be - and by the time I've finished breakfast the rest of my day is laid out. It's not set in stone, I try to allow for flexibility and will often change or tweak things throughout the day but I prefer to do a day or two (or a week of dinners at least) at a time.0
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It depends on what day of the week it is; Me and my husband grocery shop weekly and at the beginning of the week (When there is plenty of everything) I tend to take more time deciding what to make for breakfast/lunch/dinner and so I log about an hour before meals or right before cooking (and adjust amounts as I cook).
Towards the end of the week when the food stock is running low, I tend to pre-plan the entire day based on what groceries we have left or need to use before the end of the week (perishables) for maximum efficiency
ETA: Oops.. I posted this from my husband's account!0 -
I log the entire day in advance unless something special is happening, like I am going out to lunch or dinner, or something like that. Even then, I will probably log a guesstimate of the calories I expect to eat.
At dinnertime I usually have a couple hundred calories "left over" from exercise, etc. so I'll use them if I want something extra, and I'll log it then.0 -
my breakfast is typically the same every day so i will log that when i get up in the morning before i eat. then i will log again after work w/ what i ate for lunch and will log and plan out dinner for the night.0
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So far I've been logging as I go throughout the my day. The last time I was on MFP for a consistent amount of time (about a year ago), I was pre-logging, but it felt really restrictive and I got kind of A.R. with the macros and eventually ended up quitting all together for a while. I might be able to handle it now, with a new mindset of how I'm going about this, but we'll see. In any case, I really I like the idea of pre-logging "treats" just to see what I've got to work with for the rest of the week.0
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I prelog all the food I plan to eat at work and pack it the night before. I like knowing what to eat if I get hungry and having snacks that fit into my day with me. If I'm not working or if I'm at school then I just add throughout the day. When I first started I would estimate for homemade things or restaurant food and just use the entries in this database, but now I use the recipe function on here every time I cook something with more than maybe two ingredients. Lately, I've just been avoiding restaurants that don't have the info available. If I'm eating someone else's food, which isn't very often, I'll just estimate based on the entries already in the database, and ask what ingredients they used so I know if I should pick one from the high or low end of the spectrum.
edited for typo0 -
I usually log after I eat. I check after each entry to see how many calories I have left for the rest of the day, My breakfast and lunch are usually fairly low so the bulk of my intake is at dinner and my evening snack. If I go out, I use the restaurant's nutritional guide or estimate if they don't have one. I usually try to make healthier choices and watch my portions if I'm eating out, whether it be a restaurant or someone else house. Most of the time it works out.0
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I plan ahead as much as possible and log for a few days at a time. Yes, I do adjust as necessary. I search the online menus of the restaurants and play around with the tracking by adding and subtracting foods as to not go over my calorie limit or not go over too much. The best you could do is your best guess when you are in a situation where you don’t know the calories in food. I search online for similar meal recipes and use those nutritional values and adjust as necessary. If most of your tracking is on point then guessing once in a while will not hurt you. The problem arises when there is too much guessing, inconsistent tracking, or not tracking at all.0
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During the week days I eat exactly the same thing for breakfast & lunch so I just copy the previous day and adjust the quantities if I need to. I have usually about 650-850 calories left over for dinner depending upon if I had something for a treat (sometimes i'll have a little sliver of cake or something if there's an office birthday)
Dinner recipes are entered while I'm cooking it so I have some idea about how much I'll be able to eat unless I already have a recipe for it, in which case I just make the required modifications.
Weekends I just log either as I go or at the end of the day. I've been at this for long enough that I have a pretty good idea how much I am eating so I will just write things down on my scraps of paper and log it when I have time.0 -
For the first couple of months I needed to plan everything out down to my last snack of the day. Now I find I don't need to do that because I know calories well enough that I don't end up going over before I even eat my dinner. Now it kind of depends. I'll usually log breakfast, morning snack and lunch when I get up in the morning (Since I'll have packed lunch for work) and IF I know what I'm having for dinner I'll stick that in too. My other snacks for the day are whatever I feel like and can fit in during the evening. If I'm having a bad week, I do go back to the meticulous planning for a few days but I'm finding I really need that less and less.0
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I try to plan out the next day. It doesn't always work out though, which just means adjusting what's on the list and how much of it is there. 0
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I usually pre-log in the morning whatever I'm feeling hungry for that day. Then I'll add/subtract/adjust where there are any discrepancies throughout the day.
If I'm going out to eat, I'll log onto the website of the place I'm going and plan what I'm going to order beforehand and log it. If the place doesn't have a website or nutrition info, I rarely will go there, or save it for my reward meal.
I have one reward meal on Thursdays, but I still log it so I can see how much over my calories, if any, I went that day.0 -
Log as I eat.
But the first few months I logged, I pre-logged, religiously. No longer feel the need to do it, plus my workouts burn more calories and are regular, so I don't get anxious re. staying at/under my limit.0 -
I used to prelog but I realised that it made me obsessive and I would even have to take a note with me to remember all the exact amounts of ingredients I had logged in when I went to make food. in fact prelogging made me eat when I was not hungry or not eat when I was hungry because it was prelogged and preorganised .
now I just go to find what I want to eat, eat it. then log what I've eaten straight afterward, if I've accidentally eaten too much then I have learned a lesson.0 -
I preplan my dinners for the week, then shop accordingly. I usually then know about what I have for breakfast and lunch and try to eat within what's left. I usually log as I eat.0
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I prelog as I eat breakfast because that is usually when we firm down what we will be having for dinner. Once that is done, I know how many calories I have left over to indulge, or, how much extra I may need to work out to make it fit. This way, I always make it work one way or the other, and no more surprises at the end of the day. It's actually very freeing and I don't usually have to bother with logging again till the next day.0
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I log the night before and usually add a few things like snacks that I fancy eating that day. I do my weekly food shop on Saturdays so I plan out my meals for the whole week then. I find it easier and less stressful as I know that I am eating right and pre logging helps me stick to it.0
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It depends on the day for me, really. Most weekdays, breakfast, lunch and dinner are planned already, so slotting those in isn't hard to do in the morning. Most of my snacks are predetermined, too, so that helps. There are a few days when I can't do that for dinner - and on weekends - so those turn into 'log as I go' days. On particularly bad social-eating days, though, I don't log dinner; I already know I'm blowing everything out.0
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wow! Thanks so much for all the responses! It's so great to see so many diffeent logging habits and how different things work for different people. A mix of planning and logging as you go seems to be the most popular option here, with little estimating.0
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I prelog when I know what I'm going to eat, even 2 days ahead, but it's just an estimation, I typically don't know how much meat or veggies I'm really going to have (we're 4, so there might not be enough for the 5oz I logged etc), or how many calories the dish I'm making is going to be, for example. But it gives me an idea of what I can eat the rest of the day at least.
Either way I always weigh everything and log it before I eat, and adjust my dinner portions as needed.
When I eat out, I just estimate, although I try to stick to restaurants that have nutrition values online.0 -
I usually plan what we are having for dinner and log that a day in advance so I have an idea of how many calories I have to work with when packing my breakfast, lunch, and snacks for work. The calories I earn through exercise/fitbit activity I use for extra snacks, so if I don't stay active, I'm not having extra snacks that day!0
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