I am an absolute failure. I have not lost 1 inch.

Meal prepping is a personal choice - not something neccesary for losing weight or using MFP or calorie counting.

Helpful for many people - but may be or may be not for you.

But yes to logging everything - as said above, definitely i n the beginning or if you are struggling.

Some of what I'm about to write will seem complex and daunting. Be aware that it's now things I do, after a long period of using MFP, and I didn't do all of it every time from day one. Rather, my habits have gradually evolved toward greater accuracy but balanced with greater ease.

For example, if I eat out only once a week or something, a reasonable estimate is likely good enough. If I eat out every day or nearly, then figuring out how to be more accurate for restaurant food is more important.

My advice would be to focus on the big-impact items or areas first, not try to instantly master every last detail. That "must be perfect immediately" idea is part of what can make the process feel overwhelming from some people.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like both logging consistently (every thing, every day) and logging accurately (food scale, for example) have been a struggle for you.

Personally, I think the consistency - logging everything you eat and drink - is a higher priority than getting every little estimated food to the Nth degree of precision. Accuracy is important, but you can dial that in. Simply logging everything in a practical, workable manner will be a big step.

Logging consistently is IMO essential if a person is to succeed with calorie counting (while also noting that calorie counting isn't the only weight loss method that can work - but if it's the method a person wants to use, they should use it, not use it some time and skip it other times). Logging accurately is a learning process, and learning processes aren't instant. It can - it will - improve with time and experience.

So, what I wrote below is some of the things I do to be more accurate, things I've learned over literal years of logging, to make things easier and more accurate for me, not things I think you or anyone else must do . . . ever, let alone immediately. If something seems helpful, great. If it seems overwhelming, skip it for now, or even forever.

GiftedHealth wrote: »

Thanks for your replies, everyone.

I have a few more questions if you don’t mind.

How do you log your food if you’re eating out?

In addition to Lietchi's good advice:

- In the US, large chain restaurants are required to make calorie information available. Usually it's easy to find online. It won't be exact, because individual cooks in the chains may use a heaping scoop or scant scoop of something, more oil or less on the grill, or things like that. It should be close enough.

- For a non-chain restaurant, sometimes I find a similar dish in a chain restaurant, and use that estimate.

- Absolutely only when it's polite and can be done discreetly, I might snap a photo of my food (no flash!), putting something standard-sized in the photo for scale, such as a fork's tines. Later, that photo can help me log the food with better quantity estimates.

Do you create your own logs with weighing the food from your own scale and use that instead of what’s in MFP?

I don't really understand the question.

If I'm eating a food with a label, and there's an entry in the MFP database already that matches the label nutrition/calories, I'd use that entry. If there isn't one that's sufficiently accurate in ways I care about, I'd create an entry in My Foods.

If I'm eating a whole food (like fruits, veggies, plain meat/fish), I'd do a similar thing as for labeled products, but check the USDA FoodData Central database (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/) to get reasonably accurate data, then use a matching MFP entry if there is one, or create one in My Foods if I don't find one already there.

For sure, if I'm making a recipe or multi-ingredient meal, I log specifically how I made that food whenever possible: The individual food ingredients I used, in the quantities I used them. Example: If I make cheese lasagna, I log the lasagna noodles, the bottled tomato sauce brand (or the tomatoes, herbs, etc. if I make my own), the specific types of cheese I actually used and brands where relevant, etc. I would not use someone else's MFP database entry for "cheese lasagna" because recipes can differ by hundreds of calories per serving for "the same" dish.

Do you use the premium version of this app or the free version?

I used free MFP while losing weight, and for quite a while in the early stages of maintenance. I have premium now, but always advise new people to start out with free MFP, since the basics are the same, and it lets them decide whether the process works for them before spending money. The only exceptions would be someone who feels they really require some feature that's only available in premium for a specialized case, or someone who only takes things seriously if they've put money on the table. Otherwise, I recommend using free to start, deciding later if any of the premium features are useful enough to an individual to pay for them, since they'll understand the features and their needs better with some experience.

I feel absolutely horrible like I’m drugged today and I gave in and benched yesterday. I guess that’s why I’m feeling so horrible.

I'm sorry you're feeling horrible: Maybe take it easy, get some extra rest, drink enough water, eat something tasty/nutritious to revitalize yourself? Best wishes!

Absolutely only when it's polite and can be done discreetly, I might snap a photo of my food (no flash!), putting something standard-sized in the photo for scale, such as a fork's tines. Later, that photo can help me log the food with better quantity estimates.

Further to this good point - I sometimes wrote down - discretely on small notepad or in my phone's notes- the items on the plate - and sometimes (in Australia anyway) steaks and such have a weight amount on the menu
Making notes also reminds me to add things like a dinner roll or chocolate biscuit included with the coffee or suchlike that I might forget when logging afterwards

GiftedHealth wrote: »

Is Rubbermaid safe for food prepping and heating foods in?

Yes, it's a good brand.

GiftedHealth wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

GiftedHealth wrote: »

Is Rubbermaid safe for food prepping and heating foods in?

Yes, it's a good brand.

Great. Even for heating?

If they're the ones that are made for heating, yes, they're fine. Basically, they're a brand that you can trust to safely do whatever they claim they do.

Only you can answer that.

Some ideas - don't go t o places where you can eat more - ie only eat out at places that you get set amount, no all you can eat's.

Dont have foods at home that you tend to binge on - if it is not in the house you probably wont bother getting the car, driving to the shop etc.

I think the main thing is to find the root cause of your binges:
- is it because you feel restricted in how much and/or what you can eat? Then the key would be to reevaluate your strategy: gradual changes instead of big ones/choosing a slower rate of loss/...
- or is there a deeper (emotional) cause? It can be interesting to think about what losing weight would mean to you and if there were perhaps emotional reasons that caused you to become overweight. And then tackle the underlying cause. To give an extreme example, someone who has experienced sexual abuse might be afraid of getting more attention from other people when they have lost weight and will subconsciously sabotage themselves because of it. Some people have been overweight for so long that it has become their identity (for example: being the cheerful overweight one in a group of friends) and they worry about who they really are when they're no longer overweight. Sometimes food habits are linked to social relationships and a person can worry about losing friends because of it. Sometimes people get stressed easily and a person is used to coping with that stress through food. Depending on the cause, the solution could be: finding alternative coping strategies for stress, journaling, therapy,...

GiftedHealth wrote: »

Why do I always always always binge when I feel I am making a breakthrough when it comes to eating right to lose weight. Every single time I say to myself I will allow myself this one last binge and start eating right tomorrow!!!!!

Good practical advice and insights from those above.

This comment is a little more squishy, about self-definition and mindset.

You say "why do I always always always binge". That way of thinking holds the seeds of "it will happen again", almost like a prediction.

If you can, talk to yourself in a different way:
"In the past, I have binged. I'm working to change that."
"How do I avoid binging" . . . or at minimum, "how can I binge less often", or "how can a binge be smaller".

You "allow yourself that one last binge" . . . that's a decision. If there's anything you absolutely control, it's your own decisions.

Afterward, it seems like you beat yourself up psychologically for binging. How does that change the past, or improve either the current moment or the future? I think it doesn't. The over-eating episode is water under the bridge, past history, can't be changed. Only the present and future can be changed. Focus there.

My suggestion would be to spend a very limited defined amount of time - ten minutes, say - thinking about what triggered the over-eating, why it happened . . . and what to do instead of over-eating next time similar triggers occur.

It might even be a good idea to make a handwritten list of things to do instead of over-eating, change your plan to look at that list every time you have that "allow yourself to binge" impulse. Maybe commit to do one of the things on your list while rethinking the decision to over-eat.
Change the script. (Handwriting that kind of list vs. typing is important, BTW . . . it engages more of our attention in what we're writing, sinks in more. If you need to keep it on your computer, snap a photo of the list and store that.)

Also, turn on the light of truth: Log the over-eating to the best of your ability, even if you have to estimate. Log every bit of it, every time. It happened. Not logging it doesn't un-happen it. It has a calorie impact. (Sometimes people post here after being persuaded to log over-eating, and have discovered it wasn't the massive life-altering, progress-destroying magnitude their imagination had inflated it into - sure, over goal, maybe over maintenance, maybe delayed reaching goal weight by a couple of days, but not the horror they thought. That can help us make those incidents lose power to derail or discourage us.)

None of us is perfect. We'll have good days and bad days. Positive progress occurs when we gradually have more good days, fewer bad days. Fortunately, improving doesn't require instant perfection: If it did, no one would ever improve. It requires intention, commitment, persistence, patience. Keep going, do better by steps.

You can do this.