Is it really worth...

If you track, you know how much you've gone over. You can use the info to account for potential weight increases, or to know over a week that you're still in your maintenance calorie range.

Tracking may also encourage you to stop eating, or to get moving.

It's very valuable.
- You won't feel like you're spinning your wheels if you know exactly how much impact a higher calorie day had. You are less likely to forget these higher days and then think "I've been doing everything right, why am I not losing weight?". Accountability is important and the head in sand approach rarely leads to results.
- It helps with seeing your weekly deficit (or lack thereof).
- It can ease your mind and help overcome guilt when you think you've blown it, but you still ended up with a deficit for the week.
- You get to understand what kinds of food contribute to going over, and think about how you can modify them, regulate them, or rearrange your diet to fit them in better next time.
- You are less likely to slip away from tracking because you're not "off the wagon", you are still dieting and logging, you just happened to have a higher day. This helps combat the "starting over" mentality, which can be harmful to dieting.
- It may help stop the overeating episode in its tracks when you see you're close to eliminating an entire week's deficit. It may also help rethink taking a second free for all day.
- It's the best thing you can do if you're trying to teach yourself to stop overeating as soon as you catch it. All or nothing mentality can be harmful to dieting. You're not either "on" or "off" the diet. Choosing to stop (regardless of your calories) when you are tempted to continue overeating is just as much of a victory as being within calories. Tracking helps you understand how much progress you're making in that department.
- Tracking is just what you do when you choose to lose weight via calorie counting. It's a persistent habit, not a situational one. Keeping this one habit going could maintain the weight management mindset and help with complacency.
- It helps to know how many calories your usual higher days average. It's helpful if you're planning to bank for a higher day, and it's very helpful info for the future if you plan to log more loosely once in maintenance.

I also follow a weekly average so being over sometimes is normal. I will balance it out during the week but only if I know what I'm eating. So, yes, I log it.

Then you will see it there tomorrow and you won't do it

The discipline to always log everything might be the single most important thing that helped me lose the weight. Making exceptions is a slippery slope. Dealing with reality is necessary if you want to lose wight and keep it off.

I went over both days over the weekend; it was my eldest's college graduation (and he chose his major well; he starts work this morning). I was low enough in my range that I don't have to freak out and make up for it immediately. I can just hang out mid range for a while if I want. Same with losing; you can have a week where you didn't lose your weekly average as long as you get back on track. Anyway, if you look at my diary, I logged the overage. I broke a long string of days where I didn't go over more than a few calories and often came in a few under. So what?

amusedmonkey wrote: »

It's very valuable.
- You won't feel like you're spinning your wheels if you know exactly how much impact a higher calorie day had. You are less likely to forget these higher days and then think "I've been doing everything right, why am I not losing weight?". Accountability is important and the head in sand approach rarely leads to results.
- It helps with seeing your weekly deficit (or lack thereof).
- It can ease your mind and help overcome guilt when you think you've blown it, but you still ended up with a deficit for the week.
- You get to understand what kinds of food contribute to going over, and think about how you can modify them, regulate them, or rearrange your diet to fit them in better next time.
- You are less likely to slip away from tracking because you're not "off the wagon", you are still dieting and logging, you just happened to have a higher day. This helps combat the "starting over" mentality, which can be harmful to dieting.
- It may help stop the overeating episode in its tracks when you see you're close to eliminating an entire week's deficit. It may also help rethink taking a second free for all day.
- It's the best thing you can do if you're trying to teach yourself to stop overeating as soon as you catch it. All or nothing mentality can be harmful to dieting. You're not either "on" or "off" the diet. Choosing to stop (regardless of your calories) when you are tempted to continue overeating is just as much of a victory as being within calories. Tracking helps you understand how much progress you're making in that department.
- Tracking is just what you do when you choose to lose weight via calorie counting. It's a persistent habit, not a situational one. Keeping this one habit going could maintain the weight management mindset and help with complacency.
- It helps to know how many calories your usual higher days average. It's helpful if you're planning to bank for a higher day, and it's very helpful info for the future if you plan to log more loosely once in maintenance.

This is a beautiful summary of why it is so important. Seeing the overage some days at the start allowed me to switch out some of my meals, and taught me to realllly watch portion sizes! It also keeps me from unnecessary snacking throughout the day.

1. If you go over, you can eat a little under for the rest of the week and mitigate the damage.
2. If you don't log it, you can forget it happened. If you log it, it's right there in black & white for posterity.
3. If you pay attention to your macros or some other number than calories too, not logging a bad day is counter productive.
4. Part of the upside of logging is a history of accurate data. You can find patterns and suss out cause & effect. You can look at the long term.
5. Most of us got overweight at least in part by allowing a disconnect between what we do and what we ended up with. Logging bad days stops that. Owning your missteps is powerful!

My problem is (or can be) that I go over by a perfectly sensible amount (couple of hundred or so) and then think "what the heck" and start hoovering up everything in sight. I can easily turn an extra hundred or so calories into a 4000/5000+ day by just stopping logging. At least if I make an attempt to log it gives me some accountability. I may still eat the huge amounts of food, but I should at least know what sort of numbers I'm dealing with.
The biggest temptation for me isn't so much the food binge itself, as the loss of control. The idea of not logging, not counting, not worrying about it is very seductive to me.

Every food, every day. Anything else is a slippery slope.