Can't be bothered to log

That seems backwards to me - you start losing because you are logging, right? I have a hard time logging when I'm not losing and struggling with food choices. I just make it part of my day - it's the only way to make progress.

I feel more motivated to log when I can see that it's working, ie, I'm losing weight.

Don't 'talk yourself into' doing something. Tell yourself you're going to do it, then do it. If you log for a solid week or so it will become second nature.

It might help to put aside 5 minutes in the morning to log an approximation of your food for the day. Then you can just fine-tune it as you go, and you won't feel too rushed or overwhelmed.

What is happening to you is called complacence. You log, you lose, you get comfortable that you know what you are doing, so you get complacent and think that you don't need to log. Its fine, so long as when you step on the scale the number is still trending down. But it is not the most efficient way to lose weight.

I will be logging for the rest of my life probably. Granted, at this point, I'm mostly going with best estimates, so it's not 100% accurate. But seeing how many I have left for the day after dinner lets me know if it's ok to have the cookie or not, so it's still helpful.

Try giving yourself a reward for a 30 day streak. Something you want but don't necessarily need that you've been putting off buying. Or make it a 60 day streak. If you break it, you have to start over. By the time you're done, logging will be much more of a habit and you're more likely to keep it up.

AmandaAnne307 wrote: »

That seems backwards to me - you start losing because you are logging, right? I have a hard time logging when I'm not losing and struggling with food choices. I just make it part of my day - it's the only way to make progress.

I don't particularly want to go to work, clean my house, scoop poop out of the little tray, pay my bills, do my laundry.... but I do, because I'm a grown up, and I know that if I want nice things, I have to make the effort. I treat logging, and making good food choices the same way. If I want the body I want, I have to do the work.

andysport1 wrote: »

Wowser, Alatariel75 thanks Mum, I'll try and grow up, then again stuff that, I'm 48, work 1 day a week because that's all I need too, I buy anything I want because I can afford too, maybe I'm a bit lazy.
beautifulspa, flippin heck now I really don't want to log, that's obsessive, if I have a sandwich I'll log a sandwich I wouldn't dream of weighing the contents. I will occasionally weigh food after I have portioned it just to see how greedy I really am, (this has worked for me over the years) I now find that my portion sizes are about 1 1/2 times recommended instead of 3 times as back in 2009, I do weigh my peanut butter and nutella because I eat it straight from the jar so can get a little carried away. I have done a lot of reading this week so have figured that if I swap to a lower carb diet this may well help my weight loss plus as the foods won't be familiar I will need to log in order to figure out what I'm eating.

andysport1 wrote: »

In the logging bit it says 2 eggs royale are about 500 calories, I use a bread roll 156 cals, 5g of phille, a couple of pieces of salmon (no idea of weight) salmon is good food in my mind, 1 lettuce leaf, 1 spoon of home made hollandaise, the packet said 50 cals its at least 50 portions 2 poached eggs.
It feels way more than 500 cals as it really makes me feel quite full, the other day I only had 1

Is it really only 500 cals ?

This is why you have to weigh everything, at least at first. If you make it yourself, you can use the recipe function here at MFP to enter everything and that will give you a calorie amount for whatever you tell it a portion is. 1 large egg isn't a standard measurement because all eggs are slightly different in size and weight. 1 spoon of something might be more this time than last time. Since you're making your own eggs royale, enter the ingredients you use in the recipe function and see what it says. For homemade stuff, it can be hit or miss, but the point is to get as accurate as you can so that you don't end up missing several hundred calories by accident. When I started weighing, I realized I was eating 300-400 extra calories a day that I hadn't accounted for! Now, if you get a package of something, it says one serving, and you finish it? Yeah, it's ok to just find it in the database or enter the calories manually. Something like that, or something like crackers that are uniform in size and weight you can go by the amount you eat. But something like chips you need to weigh because there's a HUGE variance in size between one chip and the next.

With that being said, you may be the kind of person that won't have to weigh everything for the rest of your life. I'm not. I still break out the scale for new things or just to check myself, but after 3 years, I've gotten really good at estimating portion sizes. Is it 100% accurate? No, of course not. But it's good enough that I'm still able to lose weight. Logging in even estimates is enough to keep track of what I've eaten and gives me a good estimate for how much I have left for the day. But I spent months weighing everything I could and entering recipes for things I make. And, in all honesty, I eat a LOT of the same things, so it's much easier to keep track of now!


The main function of logging your food and seeing the calories is so that you can be accountable to yourself. You don't have to share your diary and you don't have to tell anyone you're doing it. But if it's dinner time and you're contemplating dessert afterwards, look at your calories for the day. If there's not a lot left, you know that eating that dessert can possibly put you WAY over you daily goal. That's ok once in a while, but just knowing what I have left lets me skip that unless I really REALLY want it! Knowing even an estimate of where you're at helps you resist eating for the sake of liking something or habitual snacking.

In the end, it's up to you whether you log or not. Studies have shown that people who log their food, even estimates, will lose more weight because it makes you aware of what you're actually eating. But only you can make yourself do it.