No more logging food!
coryhart4389
Posts: 73 Member
Today after 127 days of food tracking and about 10lbs weight lose, 50lbs without MFP; I’ve decided to end food tracking. I believe it is time. It has given me great info, however believe I just don’t need it to continue maintaining and body strengthening. Wish me luck and add comments of your success doing the same.
6
Replies
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Congrats on your success and all the best moving forward. I’m only 2 months into my weight loss journey and am down 13 pounds so far. For me, the food tracking and daily weigh ins are helpful right now.3
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Wishing you the very best of luck and hope that your habits are now ingrained deeply enough that you can do this without the daily monitoring. If not, you can return!!
I wish I could give you my own positive results in doing this but logging calories was the best thing I did for weight loss. In fact, it's been 3 months now since I've entered calories and my weight just keeps going up and up.
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Hey, I tried that too.
I hope it works for you. It didn't work for me and here I am 13 years after losing 80 pounds and I'm still logging food (mostly.) When I stopped in the past my weight just kept creeping up. I'd rather spend five minutes a day logging than have to lose the last ten pounds AGAIN.
We'll leave a light on.22 -
I gave up food logging and have maintained weight successfuly in my chosen weight range for years.
Daily weigh ins to keep an eye on my weight trend and having a "red line" upper weight that I won't compromise on are key parts of maintenance for me. If I couldn't successfully maintain I would go back to logging but for the majority of my adult life mindful eating and weight monitoring work perfectly well for me to control or adjust my weight. Food logging was a useful and educational interlude which enabled more precise control of my weight loss period.
I do continue to log my exercise as it gives me a good insight into my massively varied calories needs. Staying on MFP also helps keep my head in the fitness and diet game.
Not logging is a totally reversible experiment, best of luck OP.16 -
Best of luck to you.
4 months isn't that long, all things considered. But, should you find things go sideways, it's not hard to start back up should you want to.
Here's my take on it, for what its worth (which is about a 230 pound loss... with only a small bit more to go)
WITH exercise (at least 3 times a week, around about an hour a session), I can maintain my weight being mindful of my portions, and logging- if only in my HEAD.
WITHOUT exercise, and trying to eat 'intuitively' and NOT paying attention to portions, or approximate calories.... that scale starts to tip up gradually. EVEN if I *THINK* I am being 'good'.
If I add in any sort of depression or stressors, it makes logging (which can also be a control measure and help keep me 'grounded') even more critical. Even if I overeat, it helps me to SEE it in black and white (and an obnoxious red), so to speak, and identify those patterns (rather than just an off day or two) sooner and help steer me back on track before too much damage (or any) is done.
So, that is my take on it, and how things work for ME. Everyone is different, and everyone responds differently to different weight loss and weight maintenance methods. Everyone has to find what works best for them, and their long term success, and that will vary from person to person.
As I said, best of luck to you. And, if you need MFP in the future, we will be here.9 -
Works for some people, doesn't work for other people . . . try it. My advice would be not to let it turn into some kind of metric about your character attributes, value as a human, "strength", or anything like that.
As a trial or experiment, with an eye on finding a happy maintenance that will work for you, why not try it? Experiments - at least ones that get completed - produce a result that validates or invalidates a hypothesis: They don't "fail" if the hypothesis turns out to be wrong, y'know? (I'm not saying I think it won't work for you: I hope it does, emphatically!)
I haven't stopped logging personally, but that's because after this many years, I know myself pretty well. For me, logging takes only a few minutes a day, and the return on that time investment is massive. My personal happiness goal is to eat every last delicious calorie that I can, every day I can, without unacceptably gaining weight. With my personality and inclinations, I'm convinced counting is the best route, at least for now. I admit, I skip logging days now and then, without stressing about it, but log most of the time, in year 6+ of maintenance.
Give it a shot, maybe give us an update about how it's going, eh? I like hearing back from people who are trying things, about how stuff worked out. It helps the Community, I think.
Wishing you a great outcome!16 -
It doesn't work for me, but that doesn't mean it won't work for you. And what's the harm in trying?
Best of luck!2 -
You lost a lot of weight without tracking, so I bet you will be successful. My only thought..is don't stop weighing yourself. I did that..and the weight sneaks back up.
However, I agree.. logging food for a good period of time is educational and teaches a person a lot.3 -
It's been working for me! I do weigh myself almost daily, and still use MFP as a meal planner. Most of my meals are already saved into MFP so I can make my weekly plan quickly, and I like that it'll let me know if it's too much sodium, sugar, saturated fat, too many calories etc. I do eat whatever I want in addition to my meal plan (in healthy quantities) and have been maintaining my weight.4
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Thanks for everyone’s best wishes, I’m not going anywhere however just not tracking calories…lol!
Here are my November check in.
In and thanks, need to stay motivated....my goal is to maintain through Nov and Dec.
Nov Start Weight: 159.4 lbs
Nov Goal Weight: under 160 lbs
Ultimate Goal Weight: maintain!!
Nov 1: 159.4
Nov 8: 160.0
avg daily cal. 2494, net avg. 1698, net cal under weekly goal 2507.
Nov 15: 161.8
avg daily cal. 2731, net avg. 1809, net cal under weekly goal 1730
Muscle mass 87.7, body fat mass 4.9, non fat/muscle mass 69.2
Nov 22: 161.2
Muscle mass 87.5, body fat mass 4.9, non fat/muscle mass 68.8
Stopped tracking calories last week
Nov 29:
Nov 30:1 -
So, you're tracking body fat on some home device? Are you tracking weight too?
I don't have a dog in this fight, but weight is more reliable than home body fat devices, IMNSHO.
Good luck!
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cmriverside wrote: »So, you're tracking body fat on some home device? Are you tracking weight too?
I don't have a dog in this fight, but weight is more reliable than home body fat devices, IMNSHO.
Good luck!
Yes and agree, home body fat scales aren't to accurate. I have two different types, my newest, is claiming to be as accurate as an office Dexa machine and is made by Inbody which makes commercial bf scales. I'm more focused on trend while maintaining weight. So I'm happy with both my plan and the scale.3 -
callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »Best of luck to you.
4 months isn't that long, all things considered. But, should you find things go sideways, it's not hard to start back up should you want to.
Here's my take on it, for what its worth (which is about a 230 pound loss... with only a small bit more to go)
WITH exercise (at least 3 times a week, around about an hour a session), I can maintain my weight being mindful of my portions, and logging- if only in my HEAD.
WITHOUT exercise, and trying to eat 'intuitively' and NOT paying attention to portions, or approximate calories.... that scale starts to tip up gradually. EVEN if I *THINK* I am being 'good'.
If I add in any sort of depression or stressors, it makes logging (which can also be a control measure and help keep me 'grounded') even more critical. Even if I overeat, it helps me to SEE it in black and white (and an obnoxious red), so to speak, and identify those patterns (rather than just an off day or two) sooner and help steer me back on track before too much damage (or any) is done.
So, that is my take on it, and how things work for ME. Everyone is different, and everyone responds differently to different weight loss and weight maintenance methods. Everyone has to find what works best for them, and their long term success, and that will vary from person to person.
As I said, best of luck to you. And, if you need MFP in the future, we will be here.
Yep, how active I am plays a big role in how careful I need to be.
I moved earlier this month, which was a LOT of work. The new place is bigger and more spread out, and I am much more active here than the last place. I haven't logged in three weeks and it's been fine. I weigh some foods and am also being mindful of portions. I do weigh myself every day. I'm down five pounds from this time last month.
But my eating has increased, so I will be keeping a close eye on my weight.1 -
Good luck -- I hope things go well. I feel I would lose control without my daily measurement of everything I can measure but I understand that at some point it might be possible to fly solo. I just know from my previous experience I underestimate calrioes in food and how many I'm burning daily.0
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Approaching 1 year since I started this thread and there have been some ups and downs with my weight, but nothing that tracking actually calories could prevent. It was/is just a matter of overeating. So today I’m at about 165 lbs which is about the same this time last year. So the results are confirmed, I don’t need tracking, lol!!
With that, maintaining weight is so difficult……5 -
I was hoping it was you posting an update 😀. Glad to hear things are going well even if difficult!1
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coryhart4389 wrote: »Approaching 1 year since I started this thread and there have been some ups and downs with my weight, but nothing that tracking actually calories could prevent. It was/is just a matter of overeating. So today I’m at about 165 lbs which is about the same this time last year. So the results are confirmed, I don’t need tracking, lol!!
With that, maintaining weight is so difficult……
Might be less difficult if you tracked your food 😂8 -
scarlett_k wrote: »coryhart4389 wrote: »Approaching 1 year since I started this thread and there have been some ups and downs with my weight, but nothing that tracking actually calories could prevent. It was/is just a matter of overeating. So today I’m at about 165 lbs which is about the same this time last year. So the results are confirmed, I don’t need tracking, lol!!
With that, maintaining weight is so difficult……
Might be less difficult if you tracked your food 😂
Lol...the difficulty from me is not having one cookie and logging it, it's having the whole box.0 -
coryhart4389 wrote: »scarlett_k wrote: »coryhart4389 wrote: »Approaching 1 year since I started this thread and there have been some ups and downs with my weight, but nothing that tracking actually calories could prevent. It was/is just a matter of overeating. So today I’m at about 165 lbs which is about the same this time last year. So the results are confirmed, I don’t need tracking, lol!!
With that, maintaining weight is so difficult……
Might be less difficult if you tracked your food 😂
Lol...the difficulty from me is not having one cookie and logging it, it's having the whole box.
Actually, this is a REALLY good reason to track. You'll have that whole box of cookies (mmmmmm cookies) staring you in the face and then you can decide if they were really worth it.
But, honestly, I really envy people who can gain/lose/maintain by eating intuitively. That will never be me. Because of cookies. 3 -
coryhart4389 wrote: »Approaching 1 year since I started this thread and there have been some ups and downs with my weight, but nothing that tracking actually calories could prevent. It was/is just a matter of overeating. So today I’m at about 165 lbs which is about the same this time last year. So the results are confirmed, I don’t need tracking, lol!!
With that, maintaining weight is so difficult……
Well done.0
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