Quitting food logging???

its a dismal picture and outlook if you're going to have to log everything for the rest of your life!! that's too much, If you feel you can stop logging, stop, see how it goes, if it doesn't work come back try again. Its all swings and roundabouts, whatever works for you, works for YOU and thats what's important

Absolutely. My 3 week hiatus didn't work out so well for me. But to each their own!

I am thinking of stopping logging my food and wondered who else had done this successfully. I pretty much eat similar foods most days and have a fair idea of the calories etc. I am guessing most people don't want to log forever, so am interested in how people have found it when they stopped ie did they gain weight or stay on track.

I have been doing this for a few weeks now. My diary says that I still have "1550 calories left" LOL. Anyway, I have also found that I eat basically the same way everyday, and I even typed in a majority of my own recipes into MFP. So, as long as I eat the foods that I had previously logged, I do just fine.

That said, I have lost 2 pounds this past month so I am still doing OK. However, I want to lose about 10 more to reach my ultimate goal. I think that I personally will go back to logging, probably starting next week, so I can keep better track of macros. I mean, when I don't log, I know that my calories are just fine, but when you are *this* close to goal, I personally believe that it is important to track macros. I can't really do that in my head very well.

Now when I get down to my goal body fat (16% or so, give or take) then I will go back to not logging because after this past month, it is obvious to me now that I have been here long enough to know what to do do.

I do recommend trying it out, at least to see if you are capable of keeping up with yourself and your motivation. At some points, I know that I am not...but it seems that the more I keep myself on track with my workouts, the less I need to log since I am always thinking of it in my head. If that makes sense?

If by successfully you mean staying on track then I've not tracked consistently for a while. If you've got the discipline then go for it!

I will not quit since I know that when I do I tend to slack off, can't help myself I just do. It literally takes about 5 min a day to log all my meals and exercise so why would I not?

Considering I've been fat my whole life I don't know WHAT I will do if I ever get to my goal weight of 150lbs. I think I would log at maintainance for a couple months to see the difference in food amounts and then try being sensible on my own.

HOWEVER, since I have been fat for 29 years, I can see me slipping into bad habits reallllllly easily again. I do not want to be one of those "She lost 170lbs and then put on 200lbs and a crane lifts her out of bed in the morning" people. It is one of my worst fears.

So I may very well end up being a lifetime logger so that I can have a lifetime of success! :drinker:

not a good idea! i thought i was good after logging for two years. i thought i would know for sure if i was going over... ughhh six months later i had gained 15 pounds. so now i am back at it.

Firstly, I studied psychology in university so this is where my view point comes from - behaviour.

If you log your whole life it's not exactly healthy behaviour (similar to an eating disorder really if our lives revolve around obessing over food), but then again we are just trying to be heatlhy. However, one should be able to take the habits we have learned and developed over the last year (or however long it's taken) and apply them. If you have to rely on a logging machine then we really haven't learned anything. The whole point ultimately is to be healthy right? Change bad habits, change a lifestyle, etc. If the only goal is to lose weight, then we'll eventually gain it back.

We KNOW the right portions we know all this stuff but if the willpower and discipline is not there then keep logging until it is. The scale should be what we measure ourselves against after this journey is over. Weigh in once a week, if we've gained a couple pounds, then lighten up the next couple of weeks, don't just ignore the number. Also, do your clothes still fit? Do they feel tight? This is what normal people do!

But sometimes these things take time. I think eventually we should all be off of this system but maybe it takes someone a week, maybe a month or a year at maintaining the goal weight before feeling comfortable trusting themselves again. I'm still logging and I've been at my goal weight for a couple of months now. But I've taken breaks here and there and I actually didn't log for a whole month while on vacation in Australia and I LOST 5 pounds! So clearly I am not aware just yet of the amount of exercise I do (since I was careful with what I ate).

I will soon be only logging every other week to test myself. See how that goes!

L
Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Weight Loss Toolsogging helps keep my on track even when I eat mostly the same things all the time. I add food before I eat it, so I can make decisions based on where it puts me. I have done this on my own with a notebook and always do better when I log than when I don't

I am thinking of stopping logging my food and wondered who else had done this successfully. I pretty much eat similar foods most days and have a fair idea of the calories etc. I am guessing most people don't want to log forever, so am interested in how people have found it when they stopped ie did they gain weight or stay on track.

I tried that but it didn't work. However, I have lost weight and been slimmer than I am and didn't log. Just need to find that mental state again. Wish I knew where it went!

UGGGGGG. Don't do it. Been there done that. Never again. It is amazing how many items you don't remember eating.
please keep log gin.

Is that similar to regular gin?

:laugh:

I recently quit. I was logging for a long time but am following a new program and am doing well.

I haven't logged in about 8 months and I have lost about 10 pounds since then. I stick to being sensible and tracking in my head. I'm sure I am over some days and under some but it seems to be working okay for me. If I started gaining I would start to log again.

I lost most of my weight before logging and am now trying to slowly ease out of it. I refuse to log for the rest of my life and plan on stopping soon. Logging is to create awareness, using it as a life long crutch is obsessive and unhealthy in my opinion.

I took off almost the entire month of January from logging, and didn't really exercise much, and stayed about the same weight. I'm logging now because I'm really amping up my exercise and want to make sure I'm getting enough gas in my tank. But I don't log on weekends or holidays and haven't since June.

i say try not doing it, but monitor your weight...if you start gaining, you know you need to get back on to food journaling.
i recently hit my weight goal and am considering my next steps...increasing my cals a bit, food journaling?, etc.
best wishes to you sis!