What is advantage of keeping diary private?

There are as many reasons to lock a food diary as there are people with closed diaries.

Mine is open now, but it was closed for a while in my journey when I reached a point where keeping it open stressed me out to the point that I would break into tears at parties where there was delicious food. It was unhealthy and I had to do something to break the cycle. I wasn't willing at the time to give the diet up (it was a healthy diet, just an unhealthy mentality about logging) but I did close my diary and relax my logging for a little while until my relationship with food was better. It was a decision that I came to in consultation with my therapist and really no one else should get a say in whether or not my diary is open.

Mine is just for me. It's a mess, but it makes sense to me. Since I calorie cycle naturally, I don't want people seeing that some days yes I do only eat 800 calories (gasp!) and judging me for that. Or seeing that the next day I had 2300 and asking me if I enjoyed that triple serving of ice cream. I eat when I'm hungry, bank my calories if I'm not, and it all comes out in the wash at the end of the week. If I stall out I might try a "conventional" diet and open my diary for suggestions then, but other than that it's my business and mine alone. Good for you for thinking about others though and keeping yours open! Some people need to see that from others and it helps them.

I set mine private because I don't want people picking apart every little thing I do. I hate being judged constantly. And while I am eating much healthier, it will never perfectly fit someone else's view of what I should eat so I find that I can be completely honest with myself when I have my diary private and I don't have to worry about public scrutiny constantly. MFP can be brutal sometimes.

There's advantages and disadvantages to both, if the diaries are open then people can share recipes easily and can maybe feel encouraged to eat more greens/fruits by looking at other peoples' diaries.

I personally started freaking out about whether I would be judged for going over one day and wouldn't put in some foods, leading to a skewed calorie count. However I've never actually been judged and reading some of the posts here is kinda worrisome... @pincushion14 people actually say things like "Did you enjoy that triple serving of ice cream"?

I have mine open, I think. I do it because this is MY journey and while others are free to see what I am doing and get any ideas possible, it is mine and I feel like keeping it private, for me, is like hiding it. I am done hiding and keeping things locked up. The only time I do not log something is if we eat out and it is just too tough to figure out how to log it. Again, your food diary is part of YOUR journey and you should do what feels right for you. Good luck to you

I started out with an open diary. Then I got nasty messages from people about some of my food choices. So I started keeping it private. Later on it hit me that some people just can't wrap their minds around how I can eat something tasty everyday and still lose nearly 90 lbs, and that is not my fault and shouldn't affect my diary settings or my thought process about food. So I opened it again. There are days I am under my calories, days im over, days I eat no meat, days I've eaten nothing but honey buns and donuts. To me that's just life and other peoples triggers shouldn't affect how I use my personal diary.

For me personally, it has to do with honesty and knowing myself. I know that in order to be successful in my journey, I have to be completely honest with myself when it comes to what goes in my mouth. But, I also know that if my diary is open I wouldn't be. I wouldn't want everyone to see when I slip up and eat something that I probably shouldn't be so I wouldn't log that stuff if everyone could see. Also, I truly believe everyone is an individual and therefore everyone's eating plan is different. My nutritional needs are different than everyone else's and I wouldn't want people criticizing me for what I do or do not eat because they don't know my needs. Like I said, that's me. I can't speak for others.

My diary is private because a) it defaulted that way and b) It's my business.

I don't care what other people eat. Due to my sports, my calorie goal is so high compared to other pals' goals, and I use my diary to track my macros, primarily. I don't want people saying "good job" and stuff like that because they don't know enough about my eating plan to determine if it was in fact a good job for my needs. And, I don't think there is any "good" or "bad" day in eating and I don't like food labeled as such. I don't make recipes. I just eat food. Nothing to see here, kids. Half the time I don't even log. I'm just here to share fitness motivation with a community.

Kalikel wrote: »

Because there are some creepy-weird people on MFP who like looking at what strangers eat and then make creepy-weird and nasty comments. I also don't want people saying, "OMG 950 calories! It's not enough!" or "OMG! 1450 calories! That's too much!"

I used to keep my diary closed because of this. In the past I have had several users make comments to me about my food choices for literally no reason. I was in a thread giving advice to someone else and my diary was looked at and scrutinized by randos. "Your advice is invalid because you ate 2 mini magnums yesterday and went over your carbs." lmao okay

My diary is wide open now and has been for a long time. Who cares what anyone thinks or says as long as I keep doing what I aim to do.