Does anyone still track calories in maintenance?
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@Mithridites - I would have said the same thing if you didn't say it first. Totally agree. I have occasionally skip counting for a day or two. Then again, I have missed brushing my teeth a couple of times too. 😊2
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I track on and off...3
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I do. I used to fight it, but now it's become second nature. When I stop logging, I overeat. The end.9
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rosebarnalice wrote: »I do. I used to fight it, but now it's become second nature. When I stop logging, I overeat. The end.
EGG-ZACKLY!3 -
After a lifetime of watching my weight yoyo up and down, about 8 years ago I had dieted down to my goal and decided that I wouldn't do that again if I could help it. So I decided to keep tracking my calories in and out instead of just guessing how much I was actually eating. It has worked well. Logging my food and exercise takes only a few minutes and it gives me the information I need. When we travel, I don't log, and I always end up gaining some weight. That's fine for a week or two. But I am not willing to watch my weight go up 40 or 50 lbs. again, so I get back to tracking as soon as I can. It is so easy to eat just a little more than your body needs.9
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Ayup. The first time, I ate it all back. Got too big for my britches when I started flying the seat of my pants. Huge mistake. It took me 2.5 years to get back to where I was. Been maintaining 1.7 years now. I won't ever let that happen again because it marshed every mellow. It's far more difficult the 2nd time around. With every passing day and year the ground grows colder. Count me in that number that will always track.7
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I've been tracking cals and weighing myself daily for over 5 yrs in maintenance and, while others claim that they don't need to fo this, I do not believe that I can maintain my weight without continuing to do so for as long as I want to maintain my weight w/in my desired wt range.5
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Please forgive me if this comes off as insensitive. It's not intended. It's an observation. I find it interesting to read that some people can't be bothered to track their intake/expenditure because of all the time it takes. The part I find interesting is it takes as much time, if not more, to read/respond to these kinds of discussions relative to actually keeping track of calories in and out.
At some time in the future, it's possible I will be able to maintain my mass without tracking. For now, it's really just a few short minutes per day. I think it's a pretty damngood investment of time.15 -
I think everyone tracks. It's just whether it is actually recorded in an app or in their mind. How much time and effort it takes depends on your eating habits.
For example, if you eat the same thing every day, then you don't really need to track once you figure out how many calories that 1 day is. You can choose to add it to apps such as mfp just for record keeping by taking 1 minute to swipe right and copy yesterday, but it's not needed since you already know the calories. If you choose to have an extra snack or change a small items, then it's easy enough to do that math in your head without having to enter it into an app.
On the flip side, if you are one that likes to have something different 365 days out of the year for every meal, then you might need tools to help you track.
If your someone that is somewhere in the middle where your lunch and breakfast is the same, and dinner varies a little, then you would know how much calories your dinner can be and eat according or burn off cardio accordingly.
Your avg weights at the end of the week/month will let you know if what your doing is working or not.7 -
I am just going to start a new thread. But I logged every single thing I ate for 8 years. I just take a break from logging last week. But I expect I will start again in a month or so.3
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I have been in maitenance for nearly 7 years.
My answer is yes, I have continued tracking and logging - but my logging is looser now (and that's saying something, since it wasnt even that tight in weight loss phase)
Also I take short breaks from it, on vacation or suchlike, when it is too hard to be even approximately accurate, and then start up again when I get home.
somebody upthread made the oft used comparison to cleaning your teeth.
I dont think it is quite like that - since cleaning teeth is something we all do (I hope!)and not something anyone considers optional or that dental hygiene would work without doing so.
I think it is more like using a shopping list - some people use one forever, others stop once they can do all their shopping successfully without one
and using that analogy - Ive gone from writing skim milk, xyz brand, 600ml, 3 cartons, top shelf of fridge aisle - to 'milk x3'.
I still use the list but forgo all the unneccesary (to me) detail.6 -
I've been maintaining a 90lb weight loss for 6 years and I put my 'success' down to logging every day and counting calories. In recent years I've gone more for a weekly total rather than a strict daily one, and that works well for me. I'm definitely in the, if it ain't broke, is don't fix it camp!
After 30+ years of yo-yo dieting, this is the only time I have managed to maintain my weight for more than a few months and I'm quite happy to continue counting calories if it means I continue to maintain. I know some of my friends and family think this is obsessive behaviour since I've been slim for years now BUT I just ignore them... it works for me and that's all that matters!
Good luck finding what works best for you.14 -
In response to original post:
It is unrealistic to track every single meal every day (or it is too high a social cost) but...
There is nothing unsustainable about tracking your food most days and tracking your weight every day so you know when you need to reduce or increase calories.
Smart phones, food scales, and labeling systems (even if their accuracy could be better) make it easy for us.
For me, trying to maintain weight without these tools is unrealistic and unsustainable.4 -
I have logged every day since 2015. I don't find anything about it unsustainable or unrealistic. It's true that sometimes my estimations are very accurate (cooking at home using my food scale) or more of a rough estimate (eating food someone else has prepared for me). But this was also the case when I was losing weight - it's just the way that logging is. What's important is that you're accurate enough most of the time.
I yo-yoed my way through my twenties. When I found something that worked (counting calories), I had no desire to stop. I like the predictability in my weight. I like the feeling of being on auto-pilot and not worrying about whether or not I'm going to gain it back.
I spend maybe five minutes a day logging. Having done it this long, it's very easy.
Other people may like the freedom of NOT logging or their daily food choices may be consistent enough that it's not adding value to keep logging it. I'm not in either of those camps, so I say just figure out what makes you feel good and works best for you and do that. There's no shame in using a specific tool to make your life easier (and there's no reason to use tools that don't make your life easier).13 -
I've been logging everything I eat for... oh dear... I'm closing in on a decade! I log similarly to janejellyroll, using my food scale when at home and estimating when out. Sometimes, I'll just take some photos or some quick notes to input estimates when I'm out or at an event.6
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I have not logged food daily for many years. I achieved my goal almost 8 years ago and I've found that my activity level as well as my food choices have remained fairly consistent. I'm actually at my lowest weight since high school which was over 20 years ago. Very occassionally I still will log food. I mostly use the recipe creator to see what the meals I make come out to since logging by ingredient is time consuming.
Given that I weigh myself frequently and see little variation in my weight, there doesn't seem to be a real need to log food anymore. Logging for years taught me a lot about what I eat and what moderation looks like.5 -
I am glad that I am counting calories. Otherwise I could get into real trouble. For instance, tonight for dinner I've scheduled a banana in yogurt with protein powder and some nuts for dinner. Then I thought I'd really love to cut up a Medjool date into that. If I hadn't already logged the calories for the day and seen that I was already at 1350, I would likely have gone ahead and planned to add that, because a date is healthy and what harm could one do to my maintenance? Those little things can creep in and add up, at least for me.5
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People who say something isn't sustainable just make me roll my eyes.
Why not? What's stopping a person from logging calories forever? MFP goes away? Sorry, mfp, but there are other calorie counting websites out there. You no longer have use of a computer or tablet or your phone? Ever hear of a pencil and paper? You lose both your hands in a freak baking accident? People have been known to have fully functional toes.
And don't get me started on the people who say you can't eat the same thing every day. 😀
I'm someone who has to log calories because it's too easy for me to mindlessly eat (which I've been doing a lot of lately) and, if I didn't log, it would easily get even more out of control. This way I have the calorie evidence (more or less...I do a lot of quick add calories) in front of me.5 -
I lost weight when i started tracking my food and was able to keep it off for few years because I had a very active job and was going to gym regularly..so i kept losing weight even though i stopping counting calories. I started getting you're getting too skinny comments. I was at my lowest at 115 lbs
Then I switched jobs and started working with food. I started snacking and tasting food constantly and wasn't exercising as much and i gained some of the weight back. I weigh 134 and trying to get back to 125. So i started tracking again.
However, I have came across video's on YouTube of people talking about counting calories doesn't work long-term and is not sustainable because we can't count forever to keep the weight off. I find when i stop counting, I get off track and start gaining. That could also i'm not exercising enough
So does anyone still track on maintenance? Does exercing regularly and watch your diet work to maintain without counting calories?
Yep! i still track on maintenance but thats cos it works for me and i kind of need to. The answer to your question, its going to be, it DEPENDS on the person. Even tracking my calories for 3 years im just not good at eyeballing my servings and i could either under eat or over eat. Especially now ive switched from a desk job to a warehouse job, its safe to say i need to eat more to maintain my weight (keeping in mind as i have no desire to lose weight).
Regarding that youtube video you mentioned and why tracking might not be sustainable or longterm for someone its because of the mental challenges, i understand it can somewhat be overwhelming, you may become pedantic and obsessive with tracking every single gram and every single calorie that it may stress them out to quit tracking - but i feel there are alot of factors and variables - is it a very specific diet? are calories too low? are the ratios limiting them to enjoy certain foods? Thats just my take on it.2 -
I cannot imagine being able to maintain without tracking. If I forget a bite of this or that, no big deal, but I attribute my tracing of 95% of what goes into my mouth to my success. Been maintaining 110 pound loss for about 9 months. Lucky for me I can eat about 2000 calories a day5
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