"but it would be such a bother to LOG your food"

Definitely! It works for me so it's worth it.

Nope. I guess I don't love myself enough.

Right on cue!

It was such a bother to keep finding clothes and excuses to cover my expanding waist line.

I don't intend to go on doing it when I've lost the weight though. Every now and then I deliberately stop logging for a month or 2 to see if I can maintain without the bother and it's worked for me.

People with over weight issues normally don't log their food either. I'm betting that's 65% of the US right now. Lean people probably don't need to log their food.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

kudos if it works for you. For some people it deters them from sticking with it since it may seem tedious. It has worked for me both logging and not logging (keeping a mental tally does just the same). But, I find its actually more fun to log my food in MFP. Kind of like a visual progress report. I also like my friends giving me the thumbs up when I am under my cals! lol

I like logging because I have obsessive tendencies and like to see the lists. I keep better track that way. If I don't log I won't remember everything I ate and I'll freak a bit.

These women at my work go on all these ridiculous and restrictive diets and I'm like you know you just have to eat a calorie deficit and you can easily log your calories online... the response "that sounds like so much work"... :huh: ...

The logging is more of a pain up front. Those first few weeks when you have to look everything up. But then you have your own foods and meals created and it's not so bad.
My hubby and I usually don't log on the weekends but we both know exactly what we are eating. The other day we opened a can of black olives for a salad and both of us said "every 3 olives is 1 carb". It was funny.
But the only way we knew this is because we had logged our food.

My Dr. is actually a member of MFP and it's great on visits.. he will just pull up my food log and make comments or recommendations.

I love logging my food because it logs my nutrient values. It's showing me trends of where I need to adjust my food choices and maybe add some supplements to make my body happier. I am also noticing that I log a lot fewer empty calories. My calorie splurge the other day was actually juice. So, no, I am enjoying logging what I eat. It's even better when my UP bracelet adjusts what my intake can be because it sees my activity. I feel like cheering, then.

I use MFP to figure out how many calories some foods have, but if I make a salad and I know that the cottage cheese has 97 calories and the veggies all together maybe another 80, then I will just log 200 "quick" calories.
Same goes for apples or snacks throughout the day. I just use it to keep track of my calories, I don't log every single thing I eat, that would take so much time.

There is no denying that it takes time and effort.
For me, it was exactly what I needed to be able to finally succeed.
As with every aspect of becoming healthy, you have to find what works for you.
It may very well not be a system of logging, but for many people it does work.

If you don't log it, you can't track it. If you can't track it, you can't measure it. If you can't measure it, you can't change it. If you can't change it = fail.

That's just silly.

It is a bother to log my food. I cook a lot of my own meals at home. I always vary my recipes based on what I have on hand, so I need to edit recipes and yield amounts every time I make something. I also make my own soy milk, bread, and yogurt (crazy I know, but I enjoy it) and there's no good way to know the exact nutrition amounts. I like eating without measuring everything.

However, anything that's worthwhile is difficult. I'm giving logging another try because it seems like the only way to keep myself accountable other than joining WW (which I'd rather not do). I overeat when I'm not counting calories. Sigh.

yes , sure is, and being fat and out of breath is a bother too, and adding salt or bbq or eating with a fork is a bother too....

kind of like wiping your bum after you use the facility... no , you dont HAVE to ... but why on earth would you NOT want to ???

I had to click on this post...because I have heard this SO MANY TIMES.

I heard it from my stepsister...she is 46, has always been lean, and still probably a size six...but not the 00-2 that she was in her twenties. I get it. She finds it a chore to log her food and frustrating when she looks up a chain restaurant item and there are 3 different calorie counts in the MFP database. She isn't that bothered, she'll probably just abandon that idea she had to lose a few lb. Fine.

I heard it from my friend "Abby"...she is 37 and weighs over 300 lb and very depressed about her weight, avoids social contact due to anxiety. Logging food is too much trouble she says, she doesn't have time because she takes online college courses and works part-time. She regularly buys in to get thin quick schemes (IMO) like Body by Vi, Herbalife, etc. They work great -- for less than a month -- and she winds up at a higher weight than previously.

Perhaps the MOST annoying is from my acquaintance "Jill"...at 39, she just had a baby. When she was 20-something she lost 80 lb and kept it off, but then it all came back during the last couple of years due to marrying a guy who loves to eat rich restaurant meals all the time and her first, later-in-life pregnancy. On January 1st she decided this year she would lose all of that weight again - she has a lot of health problems that her doctor says stem from carrying excess weight. She complains all the time that she has lost 4 lb in 3 months and she is spending an hour per day at the gym working her tail off. She complains that her husband won't stop buying her "bad food" and her baby takes up too much time. She messaged me on facebook wanting to know how I lost over 70 lb this past year and when I told her she said, "OH I tried that, it's soooo tedious...I'm good with working out!" And then she whines again a week later that she is only down 0.2 lb despite her 7 hours this week of intense gym time. Ugh.

(DISCLAIMER: Yep...It is everyone's business what they do to lose weight or whether they even want to lose weight...but this can get pretty annoying)