Do you log when you've been "bad"?

Yes. I think I always will, or at least until I have had a couple of years as a maintainer.

I have a lot of calories to play with in maintenance (blessed to be 175cm tall and very active now) and it's easy to spend a lot of them on chocolate. The bag of Boost mini bites I inhaled on Sunday before dinner (why would Cadbury's invent something even more delicious than a full-size Boost bar?!) meant no after dinner snacking that night. It wasn't that I had too many calories, it was that I had too much fat and sugar. I don't watch my macros, but I know when I have had too much of a good thing now. Logging means I can either repair the damage over the rest of the day or be mindful of what I am eating the next day instead.

Also, logging still sometimes helps me make a better choice- "do I really need that Nutella Oat Cookie?" actually becomes "do I want to have to log that cookie?".

When I did log my food I did log everything, theres no point in cheating ourselves plus its good to be aware just how much we were over our goal.
I never liked my diary going into the red so that always spurred me on to get moving and burn most of them away

Yes, I log, even if I'm guessing the day after a binge. I ate the food, my body knows it, so hiding it from my diary won't help.

In addition, I've found some good things from logging a binge (or being "bad" if it's not a binge). I often think I overeat by a huge amount. After logging it, I may only be 1000 calories over for the day (I was thinking I binged on 2-3000 calories).

I also try to identify sources of a binge, the feelings I had that day, and possible habits that led to the binge. I've found that it's not specific foods that I binge on (although I do eat foods I really enjoy first) but feelings and habits that do lead to the binge. So, this helped me realize that not keeping certain foods in the house is not a solution that works for me; I just binge on other things. Instead, I need to work on my emotional health and improving habits.

I log the bad days. Sometimes I just put in a high calorie estimate for a meal if I eat out and ate a ton of different things. If my weight goes up I want to know why so I can get it back on track. For instance right now I haven't been losing... The amount of sugar I'm eating is through the roof. No hiding from it and I know what to do to fix it.

I do every day because I find it interesting to see how my weight changes between the days I eat 1200 calories to the times I eat 3000-4000 cals. I weigh in every day and have done so for the last 7 months (even brought a scale to the cottage to not miss a day!) to see how different foods (higher protein days vs high carb days and TOTM) affect my weight too plus it makes for a much more interesting roller coaster of a bar graph to weigh in daily.

accidentalpancake wrote: »

What's the point in logging if you just want to pat yourself on the back? You don't need MFP for that...

WTF .

I started getting serious in Jan. 2014, went until Apr. 2014 and then nearly died because I was losing too quickly (I have a medical issue and cannot lose as quickly as 99.4% of you... and I'm super jealous and frustrated btw). I logged, but did not restrict myself for about 6 weeks, then went back to actually caring about calories.

I think there was one day since 1/1/14 that I intentionally didn't log food. I went to the state fair and knew I would be eating way over with lots of high calorie foods and beer. Otherwise, I've logged even on "cheat" days. For me, a cheat day is when I allow myself to eat as much of whatever foods I would like. I can't do that very often because I have an insatiable appetite, so those days often end up around 20K-30K calories.

I log every day good or bad. I have about 2-3 days a month when I eat 500-800 calories over my limit, the rest of the time I am on track (100 over or under). I don't try to make up for those bad days or really care about them as I've learned over time they really don't matter. I've been doing this for a long time and in the early stages I used to get really down on myself and try to "undo" the damage I had done. But overtime I began to see that those few days had no real impact on my overall weight or health. Sure for a few days I might be 3 lbs heavier on the scale, but then i would just go back to normal. It's impossible to live your life and not have indulgent days, as long as 90% of the time you are "good". (if its every other day, well that's a different story).
The one thing that still makes me feel a bit bad though is if i eat something that wasn't "worth the calories". Like when I was out to dinner last month and ordered a dessert that turned out to not be what I expected at all and really not that good but I ate the whole thing anyway. Even though it was only like 300 calories, just not worth it. On the other hand last week I ate about half of the most amazing mixed berry pie and loved every minute of it, didn't regret one bite

I have been tempted not to log, but I force myself to do it and logging indulgent days has become less charged over time.

Today I have been eating emotionally. I am having some trouble at home so I had to leave home in a hurry and missed breakfast and was unable to pack lunch. I ended up at Macdonalds having a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry for a late lunch, after eating nothing all morning. Not my best moment, but I logged it as soon as I was done.

The world has not ended and I am able to have a small snack for dinner and still stay within calories, now that I know how much that meal cost me. If I had not worked it out and logged it I might be tempted to say "who cares, let me go crazy the rest of the day" and might have blown my deficit for the week.

I feel empowered by the moment - also by recognizing the emotional eating trigger - instead of a victim of it.

I log everything....healthy, not as healthy...high calorie...toblerone pies...vodka...whatever.....if it fits with my calories, BONUS. If it doesn't, oh well....I plan to be around for many years, so one day, meal, food item isn't going to be the end all be all. In the end, I've noticed the trend to be many more days of healthy eating inside my calorie allotment, and just a day here and there where I go over. It's all good!