Preplan or just wing it ?

Plan the day before if at all possible. If I know I'm going out for dinner, I try and save about 900 calories for that night.

I sometimes will do the day before to make sure I have enough calories to have pizza for dinner or to see if I should do some extra cardio!

I plan, in fact I cook ahead, but I'm also open to winging it if the time comes. I know how to make healthy choices now and what a real portion is if I end up eating something unplanned. But for the most part I have a few options for breakfast, snacks, lunch at the ready. Dinner can be an open ? but like I said, no matter what I know my portions.

I pre-log on Sundays for the week. I use it to plan my grocery list, too, since I grocery shop on Sundays. And I'll often cook some stuff ahead and portion it out, since I have more time on weekends.

Things change and life happens, of course. If I change what I eat during the week, I just change it in my log. But it saves a lot of time and a lot of standing in front of the fridge wondering what to eat. I also find myself looking forward to my planned meals and treats more, since anticipation is half the fun.

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

I pre-log every morning.

Yep. I feel like doing this makes it easier to meet my macros.

segacs wrote: »

I pre-log on Sundays for the week. I use it to plan my grocery list, too, since I grocery shop on Sundays. And I'll often cook some stuff ahead and portion it out, since I have more time on weekends.

Things change and life happens, of course. If I change what I eat during the week, I just change it in my log. But it saves a lot of time and a lot of standing in front of the fridge wondering what to eat. I also find myself looking forward to my planned meals and treats more, since anticipation is half the fun.

This. And it definitely helps when I'm headed to a restaurant to check the nutrition because I can make more informed decisions.

Definitely pre-log lunch. I log breakfast, then fix lunch, and never know what I might have for dinner.

I tend to log my day's intake before work while drinking my morning coffee. I find pre-logging helps ensure that I'm at least close to my macros, and makes it easier to fit in higher-calorie foods while still staying reasonably close to my calorie goal. This doesn't work out every single day, of course, especially if I'm going out to eat or socializing, but it sets a good routine for the day.

Interestingly, and playing into the idea of pre-logging, is the theory of decision fatigue - that the more decisions someone makes, the worse those decisions tend to be. So by making most of my eating choices in the morning, I'm less likely to be tired, physically or mentally, say "F it" and routinely splurge on something that doesn't fit my goals (not that I have anything against occasional splurges).

From a NY Times article about decision fatigue (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0):

Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice.

myfatass78 wrote: »

Just curious how many people actually plan their whole food day ahead of time or like me, just go with it ?

I log for the next day, except for Saturday and Sunday when I don't know what I'll be eating.

I log everything for the week on Sundays when I'm doing my meal prep for the week. I enter all my breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks ahead of time to get an idea of where I sit nutrition wise for that week and if I have any extra room for a little treat (dessert on Saturdays or possibly a cocktail or two on the weekend). I try to stick to my plan as much as possible, but I usually end up deleting something from my diary every day (usually a snack or part of a meal I didn't eat because I was too full).

Wow. I didn't realize this many people pre-log. A whole week too? Not happening here.

arditarose wrote: »

Wow. I didn't realize this many people pre-log. A whole week too? Not happening here.

It's not as daunting as it sounds. After a month or so, many of my go-to recipes were set up in the database as meals, ready to log easily. And even before I started counting calories, I normally had to at least think about what I needed to buy before going grocery shopping -- the thought process is pretty much the same: "Hmmm, how many dinners will I be eating in this week? What am I low on? What do I feel like cooking?" The only difference is that now I jot it down in my food log.

Breakfasts and lunches at work are pretty boring and consistent for me -- I tend to eat the same things a lot because it involves less thought in the morning. So that part's easy. Copy/paste.

I plan dinner, and then generally only have a couple of options for my second meal.

arditarose wrote: »

See, I buy my lunch every day. I live in a big city and sometimes go to the grocery store three times a day too. I've never even used the recipe builder. I have one recipe haha.

I live in a big city too (Montreal) and there are endless temptations and occasions to buy lunch. One habit I did manage to get into well before beginning my weight loss effort was to stop buying lunch every day. I did this not to save calories, but to save money -- I wanted to prioritize saving for travel, so I didn't want to spend all my cash on lunches. Usually I'd pack a lunch 4 out of 5 days, and give myself 1 day to splurge on lunch out.

So when I started on MFP, I didn't actually have to change that habit, since I already had gotten into it.

I do eat a lot of dinners out, if I'm meeting friends or attending social events. But I can usually look at my week ahead and know that, say, I'll be eating out twice that week and cooking in the rest of the time. If it changes, it changes, and I just roll with it and adjust the log. But most of the time I have a pretty good idea by Sunday what my week looks like.

(In the heat of summer, I eat out more often, cause it's too damn hot in my apartment to cook. I started back at MFP in October, so we'll see how this goes once summer comes along.)

I prelog, but frequently call an audible at the line of scrimmage if something else catches my fancy.