I first joined WW in the dark ages and tracked points on paper. Now I track on MFP. It is so much easier. Tracking calories is easier because that is what the rest of the world uses. While MFP isn't always accurate, it has a ton of food in the database which means I don't have to look it up somewhere else.

When I track, I do much bettter. When I don't track ...

I hate tracking but I will freely admit that it works.

When I started WW back in the day, I tracked diligently. First I used the old paper trackers, then I moved to the etracker they had. After a year or two, I decided to change from points to the Simply Filling Technique (the Darkside). On SFT, you're still supposed to track non-SFT foods (as I recall), but generally there wasn't much I was eating that wasn't core, so I ultimately stopped tracking. That led to "intuitive maintenance" where following the spirit of WW was more important than the details.

That all worked reasonably well for years. I've been below my WW goal for a long time now.

But...I decided I want to go back to my own personal goal and lose ~10-12 pounds.

I've been back on WW for about 3 months now, and have jumped fully into tracking. I absolutely hate it (again).

First, it takes effort. There are foods that need to be looked up, input, scanned, etc. If you cook anything that has ingredients, you really are better off inputting the recipe. I hate when we cook something, and then I have to decide if I've eaten 1/4th of it, 1/3rd, etc. It's hard to know exactly. Sometimes I can't find a good food match even for standard food items (high-alcohol beers, for example).

Second, it's hard to track food you're eating out of the house. Portion sizes and ingredients are not obvious. There never seems to be an exact match for what your eating. There's always a sinking suspicion that the actual food on your plate is way more points than the WW app suggests.

Finally, there's a guilt thing in it for me that I feel like I have to manage. I feel guilty that I sometimes need to track, and I can't simply decide to eat less. Tracking is a constant reminder of my inability to do it myself. Plus, the way my week is structured, I burn all of my weeklies on Friday/Saturday (and often go over), and then spend the rest of the week trying to play "catch-up." As such, I don't feel like I'm doing the program "right," so to speak.

With all of that complaining aside, it really does work, and that may be the most frustrating aspect of all!

I too was on WW back in the day (or the Dark Ages) and tracked on paper. When I returned this time (around 2011) I started on-line, and haven't looked back. I probably track between 9-95%, even the 100+ days.
I double tracked for awhile last summer, but gave it up. The calories drove me nuts. TOL does both to check sodium levels, and I sometimes check protein.
I too have had troubles with the platforms, but both are easier in a PC tham mobil.

As to 0 SP foods. We both track them all. Sometimes we look back a few weeks for meal ideas.

TRACKING: Do you do it? How’s it going? If you don’t do it, why not? WW or MFP? Both? Tell us what you think about it, pro or con. What’s your experience with tracking?

I've tracked from my start in 2014. I will say despite some 'tech challenges', the app has worked mostly well for me in its various iterations. I can track using the app at home (which is a big deal since we have a slow internet connection). That said, it can still take a little longer to track from home than at many of the places I travel to. Partly for that reason, I don't track 0-point foods but I do track most everything else.

Now that I've developed an eye for portions / serving sizes, I do some estimating but also re-calibrate my eyes from time to time. I think tracking has been key to my success thus far. I'm certainly aware of the need to implement the concept but it is the doing that keeps me honest. I try not to make a huge deal of it either. From Day 1 I figured I did not have to find the exact food in the tracker but if I used a reasonable substitute, it would work. The chore and tedium of finding the exact food I'd rather do other things with. Losing weight was and is important to me but I knew if it became too much of a chore, it would go by the wayside.

I feel like it's a more than reasonable payoff. Tracking does just that--it keeps me on-track over the long haul. I also appreciate that like the body scale, it's a set of informative numbers but nothing more. My meeting leader suggested last tracking it all--even if it's way over daily or even weekly points. I like that approach; it helps me with accountability and I find after tracking a big event, it's easier to just let it go once I've tracked it.

Like other aspects, I experimented with finding balance with tracking. I think I'm there. It's a minimal commitment in exchange for a healthy set of guard rails and information. I'm not crazy about doing it the rest of my life but it may (may not) be part of the price of participation.