Do you pre-log your food?

As @malibu927 said, I rarely pre-log, unless I know for sure what I am having ahead of time; for example when I have left overs or a frozen meal that I prepared in bulk.

I don't eat the same thing all the time and most of the time I don't know what I am really preparing until I get to the kitchen. I am known for changing my mind at the last moment according with the ingredients or how lazy I am. I had the same approach when in losing mode that I have now in my maintenance stage. It works for me.

I menu plan dinner for the week and do all the shopping so I know what I have in the house and what dinner's going to be. I'll pre-log dinner after breakfast so I know what I need for lunch - something light, something high protein if I'm low for the day ect....
Also I like to plan for things like pizza night so I know I'm reigning it in enough early in the day so I can enjoy a good slice once in awhile

I pre-log some items on some days. If I leave my house in the morning, and know that I have packed a lunch to take on the road with me, I will pre-log it.

When I get home, and know what I will have for dinner, I will pre-log that. It allows me to decide what else I may have (such as a cocktail before dinner, or a dessert item after.)

Sometimes I log a few things I know i'll be eating the rest of the day in the morning. Sometimes I forget I logged them and see my calories left and feel sad but then I realize I prelogged 2 snacks already!!

Until very recently, I never pre-logged but was always astonished to see that I used to hit 45-50% fat in total daily consumption. Now, I have started an advanced running plan and need to make sure I have enough energy and muscles. So I got my optimal macros from iifym.com and make sure that I follow them. It is a lot harder than just watching calories and I pre-log my meals for the day to make sure that each meal is balanced. Lots of tinkering until I am satisfied with the result.

Yes and no. Usually prelog my earlier meals and leave dinner and snacks TBD. But my usual foods for breakfast and lunch are always logged during my morning cardio haha

I prelog, but I'm also the type of person who does a monthly (and weekly) financial budget.

I find if I just have x amount of calories a day, but don't prelog or ration them I tend to go over.

With that said, I'm flexible with it, but I find it helps even when being flexible to know well I'm having this for dinner and I have these snacks planned.

I meal plan, enter new recipes in to MFP, and pre-log each week. Breakfast is always the same and lunch is normally leftovers from the previous nights dinner. Knowing what we're having each night helps me to plan ahead.

Depends. For religious reasons, I don't write or type on the Jewish Sabbath (sundown Friday night till when it gets dark on Saturday, so about 25 hours). Sabbath meals tend to be substantially bigger than rest of the week (often with higher-calorie options). I find I stress a LOT less when I pre-log on Friday afternoons, so long as I'm honest with myself about what I plan to eat. In other words, when I know that after synagogue services, there's going to be a refreshments buffet and I'm really going to want a frosted shortbread and some potato kugel, I log it ahead of time, see for myself that I've fit it into my daily calorie totals and

1) I don't stress about filling out my diary after the day when I've already eaten the food. That's when the old disordered unhealthy thinking about "I was so bad today. Blew my diet. I can't write down what I ate; it'll just upset me. Let's just not log and I can start over tomorrow. And with that in mind... since today is shot... what else is in the fridge?" comes up. If I already planned on having the treat and recognize that I'm still within my totals, then I skip all the stress and guilt and just have the treat.

2) I like to save some of my calories for after-supper snacking. Usually mid-afternoon, I'll log what I plan to have for supper, so that I know whether I'll have enough calories left over for a snack or whether exercise just moved up from 'a good thing to do if I want to increase fitness' to 'a necessary thing to do if I want to eat after supper', or whether to change my supper plans.

But breakfast and lunch, I usually log as I go.

nyponbell wrote: »

@seccotine Sort of unrelated; but do you find that the free version of MFP is enough for counting macros? I want to get into it (though it makes my head hurt, with estimates such as "lightly active" and "active" -- where do they draw the line?) but it seems like the Premium is far better for that kind of thing but as I'm only just getting back into MFP and I've not yet started counting macros, I'm not sure if that's money I want to spend.

well, for a long while I used the free one, but after reaching my ideal weight I had a hard time maintaining and gain back 7 kg. So this time I decided to be very scientific about it. I have a Polar M400 watch that tells me how many calories I actually spend per day (before that I put my activity level at sedentary plus added separately the exercise I did). I used to set my amount of calories at 1200/per day (I am 61 and retired) but had a hard time loosing weight. With the IIFYM.com formula, I am supposed to eat 1400 cal/day with about 42% protein. I have done it for 7 days now and must say I am quite happy. No hunger pangs whatsoever, no cravings, and (drumroll please) I lost a full kg in that week after plateauing for many weeks. Now understand that I am not pushing for the Premium version or the Polar watch, it is just what seems to be working for me. I always loved maths and science and the whole thing just makes sense to me. One of my friends is watching me with complete disbelief because this seems totally alien to her. Each to her own!