Many times when I would be struggling to find the motivation to get started to lose weight I would just stop tracking once the calorie total went well over my budget. Why? I was shocked and embarrassed that I could consume so much and not have it feel like anything. Especially when the budget was shot by lunchtime. Obviously that was a counterproductive move.

I have tracked every single day for the past 7 years. I finally made the commitment to myself that I would track everything, the good, the bad, and the truly ugly. And I have had several truly ugly days over the past 7 years. But not nearly as many as I did in my morbidly obese days. I weigh and measure as much as is practical. Otherwise I just use my best guesstimates. I'm still under WW goal so my estimation must be good enough.

Too many large weight regains over my life have proven to me that I will never "have this". I have to stay diligent every single day. Kudos to those who are able to maintain via intuitive eating.

I agree completely with @Al_Howard. With rare exceptions, when I track I lose. Last week is a good example. I was way over my allotted points (I think I finished something like -60 on weeklies!), but still kept at my tracking every day. I ended the week with a small loss. My feeling is that even though I was over budget, keeping tabs on it all helped me avoid truly losing control (and losing interest, and having it carry over into the next week ...).

I've been thinking a lot about my tracking process since rejoining WW this year.

Way back when, when I first joined WW, I tracked diligently. I was incredibly careful to figure out points for everything I ate, not only at home where it's easier to calculate points, but also for items that I would eat out. I made reasonable guesses as to caloric contents, and/or ingredients, and sometimes just made a rough estimate of the points themselves. The whole process worked well, I lost weight, and made lifetime.

I continued to track for a year or so, then realized I was eating mostly the same stuff every day, so I transitioned to "SFT" and then ultimately intuitive maintenance. My weight has always been below goal, but it has drifted up by 10-15 pounds over my personal goal weight. I had given up on tracking because I found it repetitive, boring, and didn't add value to simply paying attention to my weight and working to adjust my intake based on weight.

Now since restarting WW, I've gone back to tracking. Tracking certainly works. It works even better if you can stay within your point allotments.

BUT, I am finding the new program very challenging to stay within my allotted points. There is a real penalty for eating "imperfectly," to the point where I think I'm well over 100 points in the negative this week (I was away on travel, had some drinks, some fries, etc.).

In the old system, points were more proportional to calories, so I found it easier to mark down the points, shrug my shoulders, and "restart" with the next meal.

However, with the new system, I am experiencing a psychological response that I never had before: throwing myself down the rest of the stairs!

Once I've blown through my points, and gone pretty deeply into the red, I have been getting a case of the "oh well, this week is a bust so I might as well pile it on and start fresh next week."

That was never an issue for me before, because it seems things were less penalized for poor choices. Thus, it was easier, conceptually for me, to start over with each meal and always to try to make the better choice.

So, to the original question for the LTL thread, by the end of the week I often mentally disengage from tracking, because once you're so far down in the points pit, it's very disheartening!

Maybe it's all in my head, but one way I help to NOT throw myself down the stairs is to follow my leader's advice when she says to track it all--the good, the bad and the ugly. Once I've tracked an "over" meal (maybe even grossly over), I chalk it up to 'one done; onward and downward'. The tracking--as out of points as it may be--helps me start fresh with the next meal, guilt-free and still able to adhere to my plan.

With SP, things are weighted / penalized for sugar, carbs, etc. For several months after the plan was rolled out, I read of so many people who went to it kicking and screaming, BUT they finally lost the weight that had eluded them for a long time. Many went on to say (in retrospect) they hated the plan, but they realized they really needed to cut back on the sugars and carbs and SP helped them do it. They didn't like the process but they conceded the result was worth it.

To me, that's what this whole thing boils down to: a series of tradeoffs--the proverbial "NO FREE LUNCH". As we have said on GOAD for a long time: "Being fat is hard. Losing weight is hard. Choose your hard." There are definitely times I miss my old carefree, all-you-can-eat-or-drink-at-every-meal ways. But for the most part, I prefer the benefits that come with weight loss. My "mantra" has come to be "Life's better in a smaller body, even on my worst day." and it's true. So I choose to keep going on this routine. I don't do it for the scale. I do it to enjoy the corollary to @88olds 's saying. As I lost weight, my world got bigger (instead of the other way around).

I rejoined WW this year and tracked fairly well however couldn't get in to the SP program even though I did lose some weight. I switched to tracking at MFP with a focus on the macros (ie: % of protien, fat & carbs) and found it to be easier and a good fit, right now. However, if MFP gets stale, I will jump back to WW because tracking is the best way for me to knock off the pounds and get healthy.

I tracked diligently for awhile when I first joined WW back in 2011. Once I lost enough weight tp not "feel the pain of being TOO fat," I slacked off for a time but would resume when I was ready to lose again. That's why it took me 2.5 years to lose 30 lbs and get to WW goal weight. Sometimes I wish I'd done it differently (i.e. just tracked/lost the the weight straight through), but the fahrting around provided some good lessons and allowed me to do some experimentation along the way that I may not have given myself the opportunity to do if I'd just plowed straight through.

I maintained/lost an extra 10-12lbs. inuitively for two solid years. I still weighed daily. I gained weight (about 14lbs.) during breast cancer treatment. Part of that gain was medication/even less activity and part was just not paying attention to what I was eating. Probably 50/50. I maintained that gain for about a year and a half then gained another 15 in three months solely from stuffing my face with crap food and paying no attention. No tracking or daily weighing during cancer treatment through the additional 15 pounds.

I had trouble getting back on the horse, but finally got serious again at the beginning of the year and tracked for 14 straight weeks. I was shocked at how easily the pounds came off this time. I started with Freestyle but switched to MFP sometime in March. I was double-tracking while on Freestyle. I've been spotty with tracking since late April, but I'm feeling okay about it. I haven't gained, but I'm close enough to goal that I need to track again to get over the last hump. When I'm eating mainly Power Foods, I don't need to track to lose. Snacking/drinking/special events, I should track.

As far as abandoning tracking after a bad day, I've never really been bad about that. I'm actually usually curious to see just how bad it really was in order to know what I'm capable of.

So, like I mentioned in a thread earlier in the week, I think it's a good idea for me to track at least one week a month even if I'm feeling fine about intuitive. Tracking - - even periodically - - is just a good habit that might keep me mindful forever.

Thanks for the question.