How it all began?

fjs6j97xt2
fjs6j97xt2 Posts: 1 Member
in Getting Started
Hi fellow health seekers! curious to know how your journey to food tracking began? Since it's something so unique we all do, curious how this process finds a way into our lives.

For me, it began with my husband's annual checkup finding high cholesterol. He won't track his food, so I got into this for him since both of us eat same food anyways ( thanks to working from home!).

What was your day when you discovered you needed to track food?




Replies

  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,644 Member
    Google calorie counting out of curiosity, found MFP, the rest was history
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 7,338 Member
    I started out on Noom, with a free trial via a Facebook ad. Some psychological aspects to the app but also very basic food logging (i.e. using your hand as a measuring tool, distinguishing calorie dense foods with a traffic light system).

    I didn't like the coaching aspect of the app, so I looked for an alternative to track my food intake and found MFP. That was nearly 3 years and 75lbs ago.

    When looking back at those first months, my logging was horrible (many generic/unreliable entries, no recipes for home-cooked meals etc) but I gradually learned to be more precise, evolving to my current 'perfectionist' logging 😉
  • csplatt
    csplatt Posts: 1,435 Member
    edited July 2022
    Mine was back in 2012 after a trip to the beach. I had gained too much weight in my second pregnancy and put on more while on vacation. My son was about 6 months old and I joined MFP and have logged fairly regularly. I have kept 10 lb off the whole time, but I fluctuate between 130 and 140 otherwise. I tighten the reigns and start logging again when my weight starts to creep. I also just FEEL better even when logging for maintenance. As I get older, the same weight doesn’t equal the same shape so I am working through that now.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 19,283 Member
    Sadly, probably about 26 years ago when I first joined Weight Watchers with my mum as a teenager. That kicked off a lifetime (so far) of either being "on a diet" (and trust me, I've been on every one of them), or feeling guilty about the way I was eating and gaining weight.

    After buying into way too many "you must eat this kind of way!" schticks, in 2014 I was at my (then) heaviest and found MFP and started counting calores with an emphasis on leaner meats, lots of veggies, and whole foods, while allowing for "treats" and not putting anything off limits, just more on a "is it worth it" scale.

    I lost 40kg over 2.5 years and was very happy with where I was at, felt great, was active and energetic and would actually wear a bikini on holiday. Life has since intervened and I'm back where I started (actually slightly worse) and years older, but back to what worked before.

    I don't know if I'll ever be able to maintain without tracking.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 38,244 Community Helper
    My doctor was threatening statins for my high cholesterol, and I didn't want to take them. I figured I'd already given up enough cognitive bandwidth to chemotherapy (for breast cancer), and statins reportedly can have cognitive side effects.

    I was already quite active athletically (started after the cancer treatment), and that didn't do the trick. I tried various supplements or eating strategies, with limited results. Finally, the switch flipped in my head and I committed to losing weight, to see if that would get the results I wanted.

    Part way through loss, I was diagnosed with gallbladder adenomyomatosis (not stones or sludge, but an inflammatory/thickened-tissue kind of thing - when they took the GB out, it was an ugly, cholesterolized thing with actual holes in it!). That sealed the deal, for me: Full speed ahead with weight loss.

    I did rough calorie estimating for the first 20-something pounds, but that started plateauing a bit, so I decided to log my eating to calorie count more accurately, and joined MFP. My 7th MFP anniversary will be later this month, and I still log most days. I've been at a healthy weight - with good cholesterol and BP numbers - since that initial loss in 2015-16, despite some ups and downs within the healthy range and same jeans size.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,224 Member
    We had a wellness fair at work, and I had some bad numbers for things that typically respond well to weight loss (BP, cholesterol, every blood sugar in the pre-diabetes range). They gave me a phone number for some kind of health counselor available through our health insurance, and she recommended MFP. I was blown away by how effective it was compared to anything I had tried before (and I had tried calorie counting in the pre-Internet days, when you looked up things in a book where the database was miniscule compared to MFP -- way too much work, and entries were generally not by weight, so I think I was basically just guessing amounts).

    The health counselor checked back with me every couple of months for a while, and she eventually told me that she had started using me as a success story in talking with other people referred to her. My doctor, who had repeatedly recommended WW, which I really didn't feel was for me, having tried other group-oriented programs with weigh-ins without much success, was amazed by my success. She was surprised that calorie-counting really worked. I gave her the benefit of the doubt that what she meant was that was surprised that it worked in practice, with all the compliance issues being so common.
  • Xellercin
    Xellercin Posts: 924 Member
    I actually only track what I'm eating when I substantially change my diet and can't intuitively guage my intake.
  • 2BFitgranny
    2BFitgranny Posts: 61 Member
    My nlood pressure was consistently running high and my Dr wantef to stsrt me on meds. I asked if i could try diet and losing weight. So he gave me a year which is coming up in September. Instead of going down, i went up a few. I need to get serious so i started counting my cals on MFP regularly a week ago and so far it has been going well.

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