What you learned by tracking?

I definitely learnt a lot when I started tracking but more so when I realised to weigh food too. Doritos were the eye opener, I could easily munch through a 225g share bag on my own. Now I buy the multipacks with 30g bags and they are still high in cals but tracking taught me to eat a portion rather than all the portions!

I didn't eat much in terms of quantity but I ate a lot of high calorie stuff which added up. Like I would make a pasta dish and add some cheese to it, and then I would finish off the rest of the block while cooking.

Or I would eat yoghurt for dinner (regular not low fat), but then I'd eat a whole 500gram container.
Or I would eat a 100g of salted nuts. (I never knew they were that high in calories so that was an eye opener.)

Little things like that added up for me.

Now it seems I have the opposite problem. I can't eyeball things. A 3/4 glass of milk looks like a full glass to me. 10grams of nuts looks like 40grams. Thus if I don't weigh/meassure I now undereat without knowing....and then I wonder a week or 2 later why I feel like eating EVERYTHING in sight.

Edit to add : the funny thing is I could have actually fitted in the yoghurt had I just bought the low fat one instead of regular.

McDonalds were wrong.

The first (and main) thing that I learned was that my body needed a lot less than what I was feeding it with!

I discovered that managing my weight could be super easy if I just pay attention, put forth a small amount of effort and exercise basic self-control. (I've been maintaining for years now just by tracking calories here on MFP.) I also learned that I wasn't eating enough fruits, veggies and protein. (I'm much better at it now because tracking forces me to be aware.) :drinker:

Breakfast cereal...

Yes! That was quite the shocker, wasn't it? :sad:

Quantities of carbs and the calories therein.

I have nothing against carbs, don't try to follow a low carb diet and have carbs of some kind at every meal (more or less). But my portion sizes before meant I was eating way too many calories even when having a relatively "healthy" meal.

For example, I would make 2 tortilla wraps with roast chicken breast, tomato, avocado, salad leaves and a bit of pesto mayonnaise (mixing 1 tsp pesto with 1tbs low fat mayo). Nice healthy stuff, right? Chicken and salad, nothing fried, and in a thin wrap not a massive wedge of bread. The realisation that a wrap was 180 calories (so 2 wraps comes to 360 calories meaning my lunch was over 500) was pretty bad.

Same with a nice pasta dish. I do a tasty veal mince ragu - sauté onion, carrots and celery, add some nice lean veal mince, chopped tomatoes and a bit of white wine, and serve with pasta and a little parmesan. Hardly junk food - a good balanced meal. Except I was using 100g spaghetti which comes to 355 calories. I now have 60g pasta instead.

Olive oil is the other biggie. I use it almost every time I cook, and didn't used to measure, just put a good glug into the pan or roasting dish. So I was probably using about 2 tbs most meals (though these were meals for 2-4 people). 1 tbs of olive oil is 120 calories. Now I measure using teaspoons and tablespoons. I don't mess around with low calorie spray, I stick to my usual ingredients, but I am much more careful about how much I use.

To be accurate and looking at calories on the lable.

I just realized that one butter cookie with chocolate has 70cals.
I can remember eating a whole pack in the old times - so 630 cals - in 10 min.
Not that I would have realized then. Or said that I ate so much...

Bread still shocks me every time. But I couldn't live without it.

I realised just how many sweet things I eat Its my kryptonite. I almost never ate them when I was younger and living with my parents. When I moved out I seem to have them every day now

I have definitely learnt so much since tracking everything. I never really paid much attention to my calorie intake before. I realise now that some foods I thought were the better option fro me, were still in fact high in calories. I now check everything I eat and what is value is before it goes in my mouth. It makes me think about what I eat.

I love that I now feel more in control of what I eat.

The portion sizes/calories for pasta. I was WAY off. Now when I'm cooking and actually measure the pasta I think of how big the bowls where before, and I'd usually have seconds. Tracking definitely shows you about portion control and being honest with yourself.

Oh yes, I have definitely learned you can't mindlessly snack on chips or even nuts for that matter!