High maintenance?

linlinjay · August 2016

Hi!
I really do want to lose weight but it seems a bit high maitenance to weigh all your foods to log them, so it also means that i can only eat at home so basically i'm gonna ruin my social life since i'm gonna stress about everything i eat. I don't think it's a way to live (no offense to people that actually do that) i don't know, i feel miserable being over weight even though i'm healthy..

arditarose · August 2016

Just start logging your dang food. One step at a time. Take a good guesstimate when you eat out and learn what portion sizes look like. If you don't lose, consider a food scale for home.

elphie754 · August 2016

arditarose wrote: »

Just start logging your dang food. One step at a time. Take a good guesstimate when you eat out and learn what portion sizes look like. If you don't lose, consider a food scale for home.

This. It's the same advice you've been getting in all of your threads.

Christine_72 · August 2016

I thought people who weighed their food were uber obsessive when I first started here. But i eventually gave in and I'm totally used to it now.

When i go out to eat i just estimate as best i can.

LokiGrrl · August 2016

I completely admit to being obsessive about weighing and logging because I'm an obsessive person, and I'm always going to be obsessed with something or other, so it might as well be that! LOL.

kgirlhart · August 2016

I weigh almost all of my food at home. But I also eat out pretty regularly. I just make my best guess when I eat out.

Shana67 · August 2016

It is pretty simple to weigh food. And to use the app as a good estimate when you're out. I mean.... if that's what you want (to drop weight), it's not so tough.

afatpersonwholikesfood · August 2016

I can't speak for everyone, but I am an "obsessive" food weigher, and I still have a social life. I don't bring my scale to restaurants. My scale is used at home. Very rarely does it leave the kitchen. Restaurant meals and fast food get nutrition info from online + my best estimates + an obligatory 10% added on. Once or twice, I've brought my food scale to a relative's house for a casual meal but not to big gatherings. It's really not a big deal.

I also find that I worry less because I know as best as I can how many calories I have taken in. I don't have to stress over estimates. I feel more confident in the calories left and whether or not I can fit in X or Y.

If you don't want to weigh your food, then don't. If you don't get the results you want, then you'll know one of the first things to change.

rankinsect · August 2016

It's not hard to log and still eat out.

Many restaurants have menus with nutrition info online, so I pick a meal option in advance and know what I'll order before I get there. Others I just guess based on a similar restaurant with the same kind of dish. Or I just eat it and make a guess. Or I just eat it and don't make a guess. I don't have to log absolutely every day, although I definitely log more than 95% of my days.

All of calorie counting is estimates. Even the calories on packaging are rounded and estimated - not even necessarily by the same formula from product to product, either. You don't need to be perfect and account for every last calorie. You need to be good enough. That is not all that hard to accomplish.

I find it so easy to log, it's pretty much just auto-pilot. I plan my meals the night before, I eat what I planned on the day of. I use a food scale at home, or I use restaurant nutrition info or estimates when not at home.

AnnPT77 · August 2016

I think it's pretty easy, once you learn the tricks of using a food scale. Adds only a few minutes to my day, and those minutes have had a huge payoff - losing over a third of my body weight, 60+ pounds. And logging has helped me improve my nutrition, besides, so I feel just great now, even though I was reasonably healthy & well-nourished before.

For sure, weighing food is easier & quicker than using measuring cups. I did eyeballing/estimating for a while before I joined MFP, and did lose weight, but then hit a plateau, so I joined MFP, started weighing food . . . and learned that eyeballing was not a very accurate way of accomplishing a calorie deficit, for me.

Obsessing or stressing over it seem like a separate choice from the choice to do it, though. To me, the weighing makes it so understandable & manageable - like a fun science-fair project for grown-ups.

I didn't have any trouble with eating out, or at other people's homes: While I do it regularly, it isn't constant, so the weighing happened at home, and when eating elsewhere I either used the restaurant's website calorie info (in the few cases where it was available), or estimated from memory, choosing similar dishes from the MFP database (and not the lowest-calorie examples out there, either!). Didn't seem to impair weight loss.

That said, weighing & logging food is not for everyone. You probably know yourself best.

RainyDayBrunette · August 2016

Feeling miserable and being overweight is much harder than logging food.

Logging is about learning to eat right. It's about accountability, honesty, and responsibility.

Logging gives you enormous insight into how you are treating your body.

daniip_la · August 2016

Weigh your food at home. Estimate your food when eating out.

Literally no one is going to make you do either of these, but if you want to lose weight, they do work.

Gallowmere1984 · August 2016

MarieFromOz wrote: »

Feeling miserable and being overweight is much harder than logging food.

Logging is about learning to eat right. It's about accountability, honesty, and responsibility.

Logging gives you enormous insight into how you are treating your body.

Pretty much this. In my experience, most overweight people don't have the slightest clue as to how many calories they are actually consuming. At least once armed with that information, they can succeed or fail more on their own merits and efforts.
Weigh, log, track, and be shocked.

Christine_72 · August 2016

If you can lose weight without weighing and logging your food, then that's awesome. There is no absolute weight loss rule that says you HAVE to do it.

Hoooowwweeever if you're not losing, gaining or stalling then inaccurate food logging/calories would be the very first place I'd look at.

Sued0nim · August 2016

linlinjay wrote: »

Hi!
I really do want to lose weight but it seems a bit high maitenance to weigh all your foods to log them, so it also means that i can only eat at home so basically i'm gonna ruin my social life since i'm gonna stress about everything i eat. I don't think it's a way to live (no offense to people that actually do that) i don't know, i feel miserable being over weight even though i'm healthy..

So don't

Find a way that works for you to cut calories or stay overweight

That's your choice

Christine_72 · August 2016

OP you could start a thread asking how non loggers/weighers have lost weight. You may get some useful tips from them.

arditarose · August 2016

I find this episode of Ben Coomber's podcast to be helpful for people who are feeling overwhelmed about diet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPhLgzGgjQM&list=PLtpOTGOc6gWery6BPQ3wZFACZj2rid4pa&index=91

Bmoremama · August 2016

Choose your hard.

I decided 3 meals a day was hard for me so I replaced two with shakes, and weigh/measure/ log the third. It's hard(ish) but being undisciplined and huge was way more hard.

ogtmama · August 2016

I don't weigh and rarely measure and I've lost 30 pounds at a consistent rate of 2 pounds per week until I decided recently to slow down.

I still log, I just assume the worst. I know that serving sizes are small but I always measure one out the first time just to see HOW small.

If I think my strawberries are medium sized, I assume the powers that be think that they're large...and I use a measuring cup for cereal, rice or pasta just because a) they're pretty calorie dense, and b) it's easy to get carried away and deceived by the bowl.

When I go out I use best estimates of similar foods or I add up the ingredients with the amount of oil/butter I imagine is appropriate for the restaurant.

Is that at all helpful?

Bearbo27 · August 2016

I use the app and it honestly isn't that big of a hassle to log. On the odd occasion I go to a restaurant with my family, I pick an option that is healthy (salad usually) and log it based on the nutritional info from the restaurant. I tend to leave a few hundred calories as a buffer in those occasions in case the restaurant info is off.

You just have to ask yourself how bad you want to lose the weight. I wanted/needed to lose this weight and with 32 days of consistant logging I am down a total of 18 lbs as of today (I was 120 lbs overweight to start though). I still have a social life too. In fact me and some friends are planning a mom day out for lunch and a movie later this month. I'll be definitely making sure I stay reasonable with my choices and make sure it fits in my calories. I probably will forego the popcorn at the movies and order a salad so that I can enjoy my sangria margarita without going over, but that doesn't cut into my social life. I can still have a great time with friends all while logging my food and losing weight.

bquartermainNZ · August 2016

I don't weigh my food but I log it and estimate my portion sizes on the number of calories.. seems to be going OK and its not difficult at all. The bar code scanner is champion! Use that and go from there.

High maintenance?

Replies

Categories