Time Commitment

Hard to say, as it's mostly done in increments of less than a minute.

Put my plate or bowl on the scale (or sometimes the container I'm removing the food from), dish up, and log that particular food, or adjust the quantity if it's pre-logged. Per food, that's less than 20 seconds in most cases. For most meals or snacks, it's less than two minutes of added time.

At the end of the day, or when I bring groceries home, there's a bit of concentrated pre-logging (my pre-logging is a little different from what I think most people do -- I'm just looking up things that I don't think are in my recent foods or "my foods" and adding them so they'll be there easy to grab when I want them, plus adding foods I want to remember to eat before they spoil, which is mainly fresh produce I bring home from the market). The daily pre-logging at the end of the day is only a few minutes -- definitely less than five. The weekly logging after shopping might be anywhere from five to 10 minutes, depending on what I bought.

And if I make a new recipe, that might add up to 10 minutes of logging time, depending on how complicated the recipe is.

So I guess worst-case scenario (lots of new stuff to log, cooking a couple new recipes in a week, etc.), it might average out to 15 minutes per day, but in a more typical week, I'd guess somewhere between 5 and 10 mins.

It gets quicker as you get used to it, and you have entries in your recent foods, frequent foods, my foods, my meals, and my recipes that you know are correct, so you don't have to search the database and verify entries.

You'll likely also find that weighing is quicker than measuring volumes (plus more accurate) as you get used to doing it. You'll learn when it makes sense to weigh what you're adding to your plate or bowl versus when it makes sense to weigh what you're removing from a container (hint: are you going to want to lick the spoon?). You may find it helpful to keep a list of what your various pots, pans, and serving bowls weigh empty, so you don't have to remember to weigh them and tare the scale before you start.


*ETA: I'm glad you didn't ask about the time commitment of being on the forums.

Since you’ve been treated for an ED, you may want to check in with your treatment team before you start trying to lose weight, assuming weight loss is your goal.

Logging takes me maybe 5 minutes a day, more for a new recipe. I often pre-log things I plan to eat, and then just weigh them out as needed.

Here’s my typical day:

Breakfast: put bowl on scale, tare, add desired amount of ingredient 1, tare, repeat with each ingredient.

Lunch: leftovers that I weighed out the night before.

Dinner: put recipe into recipe builder if it’s not already there, weigh each ingredient, cook, weigh finished dish into equal portions (including boxes for leftovers).

Snacks: weigh out what I want, or log prepackaged food, such as a protein bar. Note that prepackaged food may be a larger portion than indicated on the package (and therefore more calories). I’m in maintenance, so I’m okay with this potential error, but those with small deficits may want to weigh their individually portioned prepackaged foods.

3-5 minutes most days. I log everything before breakfast.

I do it after every meal, snack or fluid intake - but honestly, it only takes a few minutes. To me, it is well worth it because it holds me responsible, and increases my awareness of where I am. I am going to try to work on meal planning for a week, so I will know ahead of time. We usually like to just pick what we want to eat that day - taste changes..... Good Luck!

2 mins. I tend to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch so its just adding dinner.