Long term food logging - part question, part rant

I would say that a lot of this depends on whether you have changed your diet and mentality to food or whether you're just restricting what you're eating.

If you've changed your diet to clean food then, chances are, at some point you will be in the position to stop logging every day because you've changed the way you view food.

If you're still eating 'bad' food all the time (I've put 'bad' because I'm not one of these people that thinks certain food is evil - I believe that everything in moderation is OK) then if you stopped logging / weighing then you probably will start to creep back up and up the calorie intake.

At the moment I'm somewhere between the two - eat OK most of the time but not enough so me to leave my security blanket of MFP yet.

Not a very helpful answer on reflection but just the way I see things

Sx

I don't log gum, mints, or vitamins but anything else that I eat or drink goes in my log. I don't take licks or bites unless I'm willing to enter it and a lot of the time the hassle isn't worth it so I just don't.

I'm not quite sure of my long term plan yet. I've tried to take days off from logging (I do Spike days on the weekend and thought it would be more relaxing not to) but I just couldn't do it. Logging is habit now, almost an addiction really. So, I'm not really sure if I'll stop. I do take days off if I'm out of town and plan to not log on vacation but overall I'll probably be doing it for the long term.

The higher calorie the food is, the more likely I am to measure instead of guessing.

I have 8 oz glasses and I know where the 8 oz line is so I don't measure liquids anymore.
I don't measure vegetables or most fruits that carefully, either.
I'm pretty careful with nuts, meat, grains, and cheese.

For me, logging was inconvenient at first. Now I like to see my day progress on my Food Diary. When the day is done, I am proud to see the "bottom line". Like, "Yep, I did it again!". I am taking care of my ailing ex-husband who has cancer. He needs to gain weight, so I have to cook him a high calorie, healthy meal. Then, I cook my own dinner. This was really tough at first, seeing the yummy stuff he was eating with the rich sauces and large servings. I'm pretty much used to it now and I look forward to my healthy smaller meals. Some fresh veggies I don't measure because they have minimal calories, such as; every mid-morning I have a half bulb of fresh fennel sliced thin with a dash of sesame oil and white wine vinegar. I log the sesame oil, but the rest is only about 15 calories. I have a 100 calorie range which I stay in and that covers stuff like this.

As time goes by it seems logging becomes so "second nature" that it doesn't seem like a chore anymore, it's just something you do.

I am definitely obsessed with logging my intake. For the past 6 months or so I have religiously logged everything I eat, down to measuring the sugar in my tea and counting out my tic-tacs. I of course don't log if I lick the PB spoon or take a bite of my sister's cookie or something, but I do log everything else. At this point I feel like I'd be out of control if I didn't.

I've been doing this for a few years now, the first year completely unaided, the second year was the start of my MFP logging obsession and then i'm now in to what I'd like to think of my third year, maintenance phase. I logged quite religiously last year for about 9 months, the first few months I logged EVERYTHING and very, very rarely went over. I got down to my goal weight of 125 and continued to log for the next few months, I fluctuated in a ten pound range but was generally happy with how things were holding. Then i started back up at school, as well as working 20+hrs a week and I just found that I couldn't focus on logging, it was tiring to log and try and make all the numbers add up. So I stopped, and my old eating habits came back and I gained the freshman 15! That was between September and Christmas and by New Years I had found a nice balance of eating better and exercise that seemed to work, without the need for logging.

I have to admit that it was a shock at first that the weight went on so quickly, but maybe that was the jolt that I needed. It helped to reiterate the correlation between my choices and what the scales say. So in came regular gym sessions, often fit between school and my shift at work, out went the awful food choices that I knew were making me fat and I put to use all that I had learnt when logging. I feel a weight has been lifted (pun not intended), I now don't feel that I have to log, my weight is staying steady around the 135 mark which i'm happy with because I'm in exactly the same clothes as at 125, granted I'm not as toned, but with all the hours that I'm busy, I'm happy with my results. Some days I eat pizza, or chinese food, but only SOME days, like once every couple of weeks, and it's not even a question of 'getting back on the wagon'. I think this is the closest to normal I've ever been in terms of my relationship with food!

Sorry that's long, I think the answer lies in some introspection, realising your own downfalls and learning to deal with them. I know what triggers me to eat badly, so I try to steer clear from them, and I also make sure that exercise is always incorporated in to my week so that if I do eat badly, it's compensated somewhat. When logging stringently, I used to binge all the time, massive binges that would lead me on a guilt trip for days, whereas now, I haven't binged for months! My current lifestyle seems completely maintainable, I now crave fresh fruit and veggies, only drink water and exercise as much as possible because I crave it... those are the good changes that MFP helped me to embrace!

I don't log licks & bites or weigh or measure anything except water.I use mainly what is on the database. When I started I was in the red more often than not I have tried not to eat back what I exercise but now a days I am managing to leave a small gap to cover my estimation. I think the trick is too find foods you enjoy within your daily allowance that you can spread out over throughout the day. It is not perfect and still requires control.

I have been told by a psychologist that i show a lot of ocd traits, so controlling the ocd aspect of obsessively logging is actually a very important part of my mental health.

I switch between logging and not logging. If i notice a weight gain I go back to logging, log what i have been eating, LEARN from it, then start making what I expect to be better choices, then LEARN from them.

Honestly, I'm only logging right now out of pure obsession. I started back at logging because I put on a lot of weight while injured and didn't know whether I had somehow started over-eating. I logged what I had been eating, and I was certainly not overeating, and not eating huge amounts of junk. so then I started logging my exercise. it was only 10 minute bursts, but I decided to try to do a few more 10 minute bursts thoughout the day. through logging, i learned that multi 10 minute bursts actually are enough to help to at least stop gaining. this was something new to me - this is what I use logging for.

But, yeah, the stressful ocd-ish side of logging is a real concern. the aim is to learn from your logging so that you do not need to log, so that you KNOW how your choices affect you.

Any answers welcome, but particularly for people who have been doing this for a while... do you weigh, measure, and log every single thing you eat? Condiments, chewing gum, licking peanut butter off the spoon? Or do you guesstimate? Do you intend to continue to log food for the rest of your life? Do you feel like there will be a point in your life when you've got the food thing down and can just eat right?

I logged religiously for three months last year and had great success losing weight, but I hated it. I felt tied down to only eating things that were measurable, felt like I was spending a huge amount of time weighing and measuring everything, and was generally paranoid and OCD about food. I constantly thought about food - when I would eat next, how much I'd eaten already, how much I could eat before the end of the day.

I thought that I'd formed good habits and could lay off the logging. But (partly out of rebellion at being restrictive for so long), I slowly went back to my old way of eating junk and gained all the weight that I'd lost back (for clarity - I'm talking about 15 pounds).

I don't want food to be the main focus of my life. I don't want to be tied to logging what I eat forever. But at the same time, I'm not sure if I be successful without some sort of accountability.

I do weigh and measure...And yes I do log everything I eat but I have notice something I am pretty good at guessing calories now because of having to keep and diary.. I do have cheat days where I eat mostly what I want but in proportions..Those are the days my diary calories are extremely high ....... I just say do what makes you healthier in the long run....And than it will become a way of life without thinking to hard about it :flowerforyou:

I don't log. Used to - and I was miserable. Hated counting the calories, hated the restricted calories, hated how I felt, hated the guilt... a lot of negativity.

THEN - I found the NROL4W which gave me permission to EAT more... THEN I found Primal Blueprint which gave me permission to EAT more and to EAT FATS!!! All the sudden my life is: LOVE to eat, LOVE my family, LOVE my weight training program, LOVE how I am feeling! A whole lot of positivity!!

Now - I'm eating WAY more then back in my miserable days - I've dropped 8 lbs in 6-7 weeks... and I am HAPPY! Food is FUN again!!! I have logged occassionally just to see where my days balance out - but I don't need to log anymore. And I don't feel food-guilty anymore.

I'm not saying this is for everyone - but I was pretty close to Primal eating before I switched over - now I doubt I will ever go back.