When did it become a habit?

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hneagle1
hneagle1 Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
How long did it take you all for logging food to become a permanent habit? I'm curious how long it was until you all got that ahh-ha moment and never quit. I have been going 30 days so far :) Already feeling happier!
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Replies

  • richardgavel
    richardgavel Posts: 1,001 Member
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    Probably about a month. But I logged EVERY meal, spent that first month on habit reinforcement so that they would become ingrained quickly.
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
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    beastmode_kitty wrote: »
    At least a month for me. Now I feel weird if I dont log.

    Yeah, pretty much this.

    I get kind of antsy if I haven't logged something.
  • emdeesea
    emdeesea Posts: 1,823 Member
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    Maybe a month to six weeks. Now it's just second nature.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    Permanent habit? Never. It was just a tool I used for a given time to learn how much I needed to eat. I actually became a little overly and unhealthily obsessed with things for a bit so I stopped logging...haven't logged anything in over three years. I primarily focus on good livin' and treating my body right...getting solid nutrition and regular exercise.
  • emmaprocopiou
    emmaprocopiou Posts: 246 Member
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    I have been on the mfp carousel a few times now but, logging just clicked this time.
    I think because I was really serious about doing it properly ( no fads ,no cutting out food groups , just portion control)
    I enjoy logging I don't find it a chore .
    I think it gets easier the more you do it as there are more saved foods, more recipies you create and can just tweak as necessary .
    I'm rubbish at eyeballing and being small and busy but often tied to my work bench , so sedentary , its easy to eat over maintence and the pounds creep on over time .
    Logging and weighing makes it easier for me to eat what I like and still keep trim
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    Never. I quit after about a month (m/l)
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    After about a month. I think exercise took a little longer (because inherently lazy despite actively enjoying exercise).

    I am able to not log though, I think it's important to learn how to do that too or you can get into some tricky territory with unhealthy behaviours.

    I need to log though, I am very much prone to calorie creep. I find I can eat at maintenance pretty well now but when losing weight I have to log.
  • bmayes2014
    bmayes2014 Posts: 232 Member
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    Its definitely a habit for me now. I'm on day 294. (Now, if I was in a caloric deficit 294 days I'd be much further along, but that's a story for another post). Anyhow, logging does make me accountable.

    Like someone else stated, I have been on MFP a number of years and logged and stopped off and on. I never set out to create a streak, I was just committed to logging and seeing a change this time around. Fitness and weight loss is the first thing I think of when I wake (I work out first thing in the a.m.) and the last thing I think of before I go to bed (I think of my little one and I pray as well) but, in general, I am prepping for my morning gym session.

    To answer your question, I am not quite sure exactly 'when'. Sometime in the midst of the commitment to weight loss. Maybe a month or two in I suppose
  • cross2bear
    cross2bear Posts: 1,106 Member
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    Been at it about 6 months - I think this is one obsessive behaviour that is actually a good idea for me. Its a reinforcement that I am on the right track. I like getting that kind of instant gratification and positive feedback.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
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    It took around 7 months to make it a habit.
  • nordlead2005
    nordlead2005 Posts: 1,303 Member
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    It wasn't a habit for me, it was a decision. Jun 1st 2015 I decided to track calories and did it every day. There was no trying to make it a habit, I just did it since it was a tool/method I decided to use. It took until Jan/Feb 2016 to hit my target weight and then I went a little further in the push for abs. Over the last 2 months I got super relaxed about it though as I didn't care and was maintaining. I now want to do a last minute cut to get more defined abs before the summer so I'm logging more carefully now.
  • Alidecker
    Alidecker Posts: 1,262 Member
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    Never for me, I dread it to this day. When I started I did it all with pen and paper, you would think this would be easier and less of a pain, but I still dread it. There are times when I am really good about it, but then I start feeling obsessive.
  • akf2000
    akf2000 Posts: 278 Member
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    I find pre-logging the most valuable aspect; planning the week's lunches ahead of time and logging them so I can buy all the bits and pieces and there's no surprises.
  • endlessfall16
    endlessfall16 Posts: 932 Member
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    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    Never. I quit after about a month (m/l)

    Haha...short and direct, but I like it. Good to know all sides.

    OP, I logged fine (in first 2 months). It's easy (within certain confinement). No ahh ha moments. However, gradually I ran into "uh oh" moments a lot.

    My friends and I ate out at small restaurants a lot. Even when I ate out alone I got conscious about how many cups of cokes I drank or how many chips I ate (Rubio's). I got tired of guessing or trying to remember. I stopped logging and developed another strategy.

    Not what you are asking, but I advise that you keep refining your strategy. That's a sportsmen mentality.
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,222 Member
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    Several weeks for me. The problem now is I don't know if I'll be able to stop when I'm done.
  • TheCrawlingChaos
    TheCrawlingChaos Posts: 462 Member
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    As most have said, it was probably about a month for me, but I've lately been VERY lazy about doing it and have for all intents and purposes, stopped logging. I log my breakfast and lunch weekdays (vaguely... usually i'm not following recipes well enough for them to be accurate), and rarely anything when I get home from work. Weekends I'm lucky if I log anything more than breakfast each day. I think this is mostly because eating healthy consistently has become a much stronger habit and have gotten a "feel" for how many calories of the common foods I eat are worth. I still wish I was better with logging just because I know it's going to come down to a time when my loss stops being consistent and it would be good to be able to point out where my problem was when that happens. I need to re-instantiate the logging habit.
  • ballyshea
    ballyshea Posts: 187 Member
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    I started trying to lose weight last October. I tried to keep a mental note of what I was eating each day. That didn't work, so I tried paper and pencil. That didn't work either.

    In February this year I started using MFP and Fitbit. I was so motivated and found logging so much easier to what I'd done before that it became a habit straightaway. I especially like the food barcode scanner.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,843 Member
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    hneagle1 wrote: »
    How long did it take you all for logging food to become a permanent habit? I'm curious how long it was until you all got that ahh-ha moment and never quit. I have been going 30 days so far :) Already feeling happier!

    It's not a permanent habit because I certainly do not intend to keep doing it forever, and in the last 18 months, I've taken 2 fairly lengthy diet breaks where I stopped logging (1 month and 6 weeks).

    But when I started logging in February 2015, with the exception of those planned diet breaks, I have logged continually and consistently from Day 1. That's what I'm here for. If I weren't going to log regularly, I wouldn't have bothered signing up for MFP.

    Plus it probably helped that I've logged every single kilometre I've cycled since April 29, 1990. I love data. :)

  • deniztuzu2
    deniztuzu2 Posts: 77 Member
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    It must have taken couple of months, but I know it is a permanent habit for me now because I just keep logging like second nature, I don't even know my logging streak...(had a look, its 571).

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