Logging food on MFP makes me feel obsessive.
workathomemama
Posts: 49 Member
I feel like I spend too much time logging my food, weighing my food, preparing my food. When will this end?
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Obsessive works for me.0
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As long as you're not constantly washing your hands, obsessing about health is a good thing.
But I gotta say, I only weighed my food a couple times just to see how good my estimates were. Likewise, I stopped logging my food once I understood portions, nutrient content, caloric content, etc.0 -
I never did it for more than a couple of days at a time. I'm almost OCD with it but noticing trends I would not have had I not been logging regularly. More info is good. You won't need to weigh food much. After awhile you'll know what something weighs and not think so much about it.0
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It gets easier, in my opinion.
I usually eat the same things, especially during the week, so I get a pretty good idea of what the nutritional information is.
If you keep at it, it will get better.0 -
I hear what you're saying (hubby teases bc I won't grab a handful of something, I weigh or count, claims it's borderline eating disorder but he doesn't mean it) , but this is the first time in at least 6 years I've been happy with my body so I guess it's ok!0
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yes it feels obsessive to me, and i have OCD. LOL
maybe it's a good outlet for me b/c it's a healthy obsession.
the way things are now, i can't imagine NOT logging food, but i do think one day that time will come.
in 48 more pounds......................0 -
lithezebra wrote: »Obsessive works for me.
Me too! When I play it loose I get myself in trouble. My kitchen scale sits between my cutting board and my stovetop. Nothing goes in my mouth unless it can be weighed and calculated. I have half a dozen sets of measuring spoons and cups so I never run out. But I admit, I'm a bit obsessive by nature lol.0 -
Every time I start tracking I feel the same way and it feels like a waste of time. Then I discovered what I call the batch entering process (BEP). In the morning when I have my coffee, I enter in what I'm having for lunch and (if I know) what I'm having for dinner. When I weigh stuff, I write the totals down on one of those dollar store dry erase boards so I don't have to keep stopping and entering in the data on my phone. I hated measuring and weighing salads before. Thanks to BEP, I can make my salad in no time!
I find BEP makes me stick more to my plan because I don't want to have to take out my phone and enter something else in. At the end of the day if I didn't eat a snack I planned or whatever, I quickly swipe and remove.0 -
Once you get your entry banks filled up with foods you use all the time, it takes less than 3 min to log my whole day. I do it the night before so all I have to do is change specific amounts after mealtime.
The app is MUCH quicker for that like @suesuarez said. It's a piece of LC cake.
One day you may be able to eyeball. Try to look at this as training yourself to do that.
Personally, I'm working on mindful eating so that I will be able to go stretches intuitively.
It's a process.0 -
Well, *not* tracking got me to 306lbs, so I'm ok with tracking. I discovered that I eat the same foods in cycles. Rarely do I need to look up food; the 4 pages of recent foods plus the recipes I've entered takes care of probably 98% of my food entries. I even eat the same foods when I eat out. I also pre-log the whole day at breakfast. It takes less than 2 minutes and then another 3 or so throughout the day to adjust the entries for accuracy. Really, if 5 minutes a day is going to keep me on track, I'm ok with that.
As someone with actual OCD, let me say that tracking food really isn't obsession. The only people I've heard say that with absolute certainty are people who are threatened by my success. And they can go f... pound sand.0 -
Every time I start tracking I feel the same way and it feels like a waste of time. Then I discovered what I call the batch entering process (BEP). In the morning when I have my coffee, I enter in what I'm having for lunch and (if I know) what I'm having for dinner. When I weigh stuff, I write the totals down on one of those dollar store dry erase boards so I don't have to keep stopping and entering in the data on my phone. I hated measuring and weighing salads before. Thanks to BEP, I can make my salad in no time!
I find BEP makes me stick more to my plan because I don't want to have to take out my phone and enter something else in. At the end of the day if I didn't eat a snack I planned or whatever, I quickly swipe and remove.
Really good suggestion @suesuarez! I usually make my meal and then input the data. I've been on MFP for a long time (but not LC) and still can't input my food in 5 min for the entire day. My food bank has about 5 pages full of different foods. I'll try your suggestion tonight
I think this way of eating is obsessive though. It's not a matter of how often we think of food, it's not being able to stop thinking about it, not being able to *not* track. I tried to stop tracking for 2 days, and I had to willpower myself to not do it on MFP, but I certainly did it in my head. I felt so uncomfortable with the idea of not tracking that I ultimately just inputted a guestimate of calories at the end of the night. If I can't stop doing something I want to stop doing, there's a problem, and this is where I am. I also don't want my children to think of food as something they have to weight and measure, and "obsess" over, but that's another post which is more about *dieting* in general and not about LC.
@samanthaluangphixay, @cdebracy and @baconslave ; True, I guess it's all about the practice, the process, and the learning. I've had years of learning to guestimate inaccurately, and so I get why I need the scale. It's just so time consuming because I don't eat the same thing twice in a row. I suppose I can try doing that though.0 -
It feels obsessive for me too but I'd rather obsess now over my food numbers than later over my blood sugar and insulin numbers!!0
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workathomemama wrote: »If I can't stop doing something I want to stop doing, there's a problem, and this is where I am. I also don't want my children to think of food as something they have to weight and measure, and "obsess" over, but that's another post which is more about *dieting* in general and not about LC.
Some people work every day. Some people have life-long hobbies. Just about everybody brushes their teeth a couple times a day.
We don't call these obsessions because they benefit us.
Your kids are growing up in an environment that differs significantly from the environment their genes adapted to via evolution. Teach them some skills to cope with this strange artificial environment, and stop worrying about whether it should be labeled an "obsession."0 -
It feels obsessive for me too but I'd rather obsess now over my food numbers than later over my blood sugar and insulin numbers!!
That's very true @klkateri. I had gestational diabetes and had to inject insulin 3 times a day and measure blood sugar 5 times a day. That was awful, but in the end, I had a healthy baby girl!0 -
I prelog my day every morning. It takes me a few minutes.0
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I log, haven't weighed one thing yet--but the logging keeps me on track and adds to accountability big time---if you are stressed then find some way of managing it.
You're supposed to feel relaxed but with a gentle focus, try to guess a bit after you've been doing this enough time so not every food item needs so much time and attention.
Good Luck OP.0 -
workathomemama wrote: »If I can't stop doing something I want to stop doing, there's a problem, and this is where I am. I also don't want my children to think of food as something they have to weight and measure, and "obsess" over, but that's another post which is more about *dieting* in general and not about LC.
Some people work every day. Some people have life-long hobbies. Just about everybody brushes their teeth a couple times a day.
We don't call these obsessions because they benefit us.
Your kids are growing up in an environment that differs significantly from the environment their genes adapted to via evolution. Teach them some skills to cope with this strange artificial environment, and stop worrying about whether it should be labeled an "obsession."
my daughter is 7 and she sees me weighing and logging food. to her, i hope it shows that i care enough about myself to do these things to be healthy. i told her i am doing this for health, not weight.
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I can cheerfully ignore it all on holidays or out to dinner but still manage to be low carb. Daily, at home I use a digital scale and a micro digital scale where I weigh small amounts like my morning BPC butter n oil.0
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I love logging my food now, When I was just watching calories and not keto, I hated it. Now it's so much easier with the food I am eating. I've logged every day without fail for the last 55 days but I don't feel obsessive. 0
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I use my scale, measuring spoons and cups at each meal preparation. I feel I can relax once I know my portions are accurate. I do not completely trust my eyeball method. Three oz or six oz of roast beef? Drop it in the scale, be certain and then don't worry about it.0
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I used to track when I first started (I never weighed, just measured or eyeballed). Once I got to the point where I really had a feel for what foods I can eat with reckless abandon, what foods I can have, but need to watch portions/frequency, and what foods to avoid pretty much altogether, I stopped logging. I will check in from time to time and log a day, just to see how I'm doing, but I can't imagine logging every day for the rest of my life. So I don't.0
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Oh man. i have to log everything. Like others have mentioned I eat a lot of the same kinds of food. I know what 4 oz of fish looks like. I think it keeps me aware of what I am putting in my body. Weighing and logging my food is what has helped me lose almost 17 pounds. If I am looking to try something different I look it up first. If the numbers do not look good I do not eat it. I am already obssessive in other areas of my life. Why not do it when it really matters. My health is so important so I look at it as time well spent. I am invested in me!!0
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I remember in college we did an experiment where you partnered up with someone for 8 hours. You wrote down everything your partner ate. On the following day, you wrote down what you remembered eating. It wasn't uncommon for people to forget 1/3 or more of what they ate.
I weigh/ measure most foods and it's worth it to me to take the extra few seconds to log them. I like being able to see if there's a pattern when things don't go the way I expected or if other changes occur.
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I also have a crappy short term memory so what I usually do when I am cooking is write down the food and the amounts I measured up on a piece of paper and then enter it into a recipe on MFP. Then I portion it out for meal preps and it helps with pre-logging.
It is also helpful because then my food doesn't accidentally burn as I am logging.0 -
I tried giving up logging recently, and it proved to be too slippery a slope for me. I don't benefit from trying to get really exact with logging, but the act of simply noting everything I eat and drink all day tends to keep me on plan.0
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Logging is easy.
I do it because I want objective measurements.
If I have results I like or love, I want to know WHY!!! No guessing!
Knowledge is power in this regard.
So logging is a privilege not a punishment.
Just eating without attention is what got me to 350+ pounds. No more!
And as I near maintenance logging will increase as I experiment.
Small price to pay for health!0 -
Weighing food and tracking calories helped me with portion sizing. I tend to overeat and would mis-estimate a lot until I started to measure. Yeah it might 'feel' a certain way, people might think its weird. A lot of armchair psychiatrists over the internet would say its ED activity. Well, it works. I don't care if its not convenient, or weird. Not fitting into my pants any more sure is a lot less convenient than measuring what I fuel myself with. Measuring works for me and that's why I do it.0
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I don't mind logging, but I don't weigh. I know it's not precise. There are some things I use measuring utensils for. But on the other hand. If I know the total in the ingredients (like the kimchi fried cauliflower rice I'm making tonight), I roughly divide it into X servings and figure it's close enough.
I have enough of a deficit to cover 100 kcal give or take and truthfully it's not like I subtract calories when I don't eat all my food. It's a wash.
Similarly, when I have something at work that I eat over 3 days, I divide it into 3 rough servings. If my last serving is smaller than my first, it doesn't matter. I don't think my body knows that I ate 400 calories for lunch one day, 300 another, and 200 another. I log the 300 all three days.
Other people may disagree, but I am comfortable with this. I don't sneak carbs though. I'm firm on that!0 -
Logging is easy.
I do it because I want objective measurements.
If I have results I like or love, I want to know WHY!!! No guessing!
Knowledge is power in this regard.
So logging is a privilege not a punishment.
Just eating without attention is what got me to 350+ pounds. No more!
And as I near maintenance logging will increase as I experiment.
Small price to pay for health!
I might frame this!0 -
I can't stand the thought of not weighing and logging.. If I didn't I'd just be winging it and hope I'm coming in close. I need the reassurance of seeing that data everyday and knowing I'm on the right track.
I also have a fitbit, and I'd be a blithering mess without that too lol
I've done a few tests over time.. I'd guess the weight of things and then weigh it. Each and every time I waaay underestimated it. If I went to eyeballing/estimating foods I'd put on weight toot sweet, and not knowing the where's or why's would drive me nuts.0
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