Another person just posted this as a response to another thread, it sort of bothers me, I cannot pinpoint why:

"If you want to be successful at maintaining weight after you lose it, the National Weight Loss Registry has found that over 90% of those who are successful keep a food diary and write every bite, lick and taste."

Although I don't refute it - I still don't like the sound of it.

- I once read an old post on this site about the woman who died and all she left behind were thousands of food journals, describing every bite, lick and taste.

- Licks, really?

- If I go to each maintenor's home, am I really going to find accounts of them licking things and estimating calories? What could it be - a lick - 10 calories at most?

-what about the fact that calorie counting itself will always be somewhat inaccurate because the information given to us by the producers may not be truly accurate?

-what about the fact that some producers already subtract fiber grams and others do not? What about the fiber grams in our fruits and veggies - is anyone here subtracting those?

I dunno - I really cannot pinpoint why I have a problem with this. I am a super accurate food weigher. Somehow this "study" with findings of 90% discourages me.

But I also don't mean to discourage anyone here if you are counting your licks.

I know what you mean: It's discouraging to know that if we are not the type to be obsessive about tracking (& recording every lick, bite, and taste is obsessive, let's face it----and I do it, so no offense to anyone), we might not succeed. It's the idea that to be successful, it seems as if obsessiveness is a requirement.

I have sort of accepted it, though. In past attempts I rebelled against it and tried to be "normal," but I would fail and regain because my reaction to food is not normal, and I can't seem to train myself to be normal. So, I'll have to be somewhat obsessive to stay at a healthy weight, and at least right now, I'm okay with the trade-off.

I do try to record my bites, licks, and tastes because in the past, those were a big source of my overeating. I'll bet I would consume several hundred calories a day just licking & tasting. So, now, I try not to do that because I know it can add up and it's a real pain to record it in my smartphone app anyway.

I think (hope?) there is a middle ground between not recording at all, and meticulously recording every single bite, lick, and taste. That middle ground is what I strive for.

I cook a lot. And cooking often requires tasting. So I try to pay attention to what I am tasting - if it's really just a lick of a low-calorie sauce, I'm not going to fret about it. If it's something calorie-dense, I do pay more attention and either compensate for it or just assign a 25- or 50-calorie "sampled while cooking" entry in my log.

For example, if I tasted a tablespoon full of rice while testing its doneness or adjusting its seasoning, it's easy enough to serve myself a tablespoon short when I measure out my half a cup serving for dinner. Or, last night I was making spiced nuts for a party at my office today - nuts are so calorie dense (and so easy for me to go overboard on) that I kept a careful count of how many I'd tasted and entered that number of nuts in my log.

Throughout my process I have made a conscious effort not to drive myself crazy. In fact, for the first two years/100 pounds of it, I did not count calories rigorously every day at all - most days I kept a rough mental tally using foods whose calorie counts I knew, and only kept and logged a rigorous count a few days a month as a reality check. After I got down to less than 20 pounds to go, though, I found I had to be more rigorous in order to keep losing the way I wanted to. And so 25 calories here, 50 calories there might start to add up - at least, I want to keep track so I know whether they add up or not. For most of my process I didn't have to think about things at that level - for now, though, I want to.

Bottom line, whatever works for you on this level of tracking is fine, and what works for you today might not be what works for you at a different stage in your process.

lin43: thats exactly it - the obsessiveness of it all. I don't want to be that way, about anything in life. I would rather spread my obsessiveness around to many different activities.

carter:I also love cooking - and taste-testing is definitely required. I really like what you said about find the middle ground (and I think Aristotle would agree with you totally on that one!).

I suppose one could:

a) completely give up ALL licks, tastes, and bites.
or
b) save 100 calories everyday to account for them.
or
c)write them down.

I'm not one to write things down—for anything. I just remember things and I find it cumbersome to write things down in general. I just remember appointments, due dates, etc. In graduate school I didn't even touch my planner and I graduated with a 3.85 GPA (Maybe I would have had a 4.0 if I used it )

It didn't make sense for me to write anything down for my eating then either. I can't tell you if this means I'll be a successful maintainer or not, but I've certainly been a successful loser.

I really hate statistics sometimes for that reason. So what if something works for 90% of the population? I might just be in that 10% that something else works for. It took me a while but I found something that worked for me and I'm glad I did. We're bombarded with messages of "do this because it works for 99% of the people!!!" when we really need to sit down and forget all of this sometimes and realize that we're all different and need to figure out what works for us. Incorporating some things here and there that work for the majority might help, or it might not.

Back to the topic: I rarely sample when I'm cooking unless necessary and usually I'll budget ~50 cals for it, but that also depends. I'm not going to go crazy if I happen to take in 10 cals more than I think I did for the day.

I would question those numbers. I would not at all be surprised if 90% kept a food journal, or even that the most successful were the most accurate when journaling, but I would be extremely surprised if they truly recorded "every bite, lick, or taste."

That may be the author's conclusion (that if you want to be successful, you need to record everything), or it may be that 90% "try to" or "say they" record every BLT, but even so the stated numbers still just don't seem likely.

Also, remember that not everyone who succeeds will register with the National Weight Loss Registry. It's very possible that the people willing to "go the extra mile" to register, are also willing to "go the extra mile" to record every BLT.

And the people who don't journal, may also be less likely to register as well.

Because the National Weight Loss Registry isn't a random sample, you can't conclude anything about the behavior of successful weight losers - you can only make conclusions about successful losers who register to the registry.

Even if you trust the numbers to reflect all maintainers, so what? 95 to 98% of dieters fail - so if you lose weight, you're already in the top 3 - 5%, what's to say you're not in the 10% who maintain without such a meticulous food journal.

The statistics only tell you what a group of people have done, not what you can do.

You only have to be as meticulous as you have to be. Your success or lack of it, tells you whether you have to do more than you're doing, and you only have to do as much as works for you.

I have been on both ends of the spectrum....to the point of having an eating disorder that's why I can't track at all it triggers my obsession, and why I have to lay off the scale, I get way too overy obsessed with the details. So far what's working for me are making healthy choices, keeping a light count in my head, and portion size. I have lots of healthy fit friends who don't journal, I don't want to have to write everything I eat down for the rest of my life, but I want awareness of what I'm putting into my body. I started off journalling and it served it's purpose and educated me what I could and couldn't eat. I don't want it to rule my life. I want a little slack, I want to live. I've been the overly obsessive type and honestly it's sooooo tiring, to the point of exhaustion, and I gained every pound back plus more and put me off weight loss for a loooooong time. I want to enjoy the things I eat, and everything in moderation. I know in my heart when I'm being honest for me and I have to keep asking myself questions....like last night, I grabbed the mixed nuts then looked at it and said.....it's close to bed time, I'm not hungry, I don't need these, and put them back. Things like that are helping mey lose the weight I need, and I'm finding middle ground.

You know...I have a little cheat that I do. If I take one bite lick or taste of something (um...lick?) I let myself have that. I overestimate, or try to, on everything I log so I'm really not worried about it. I keep it in mind, but I'm not going to log it.

I'll allow myself one taste of something each day, if I want it. Like I'll eat one potato chip or take a taste while I'm cooking. And that's my non recorded thing for the day...5-10 calories at the most and it really helps me not to binge for some reason.

This. Totally. I let that really negative statistic about successful weight loss/maintenance stop me from even attempting to change for too many years. I will not let statistics define me any more.

I agree that statistics may be misleading but I think it's probably true that people like me - compulsive overeaters - probably do better with some sort of tracking system. I don't record every bite; in fact, I routinely eat a couple of caramels every day and don't log the 80 calories for them. I know all the numbers I log are estimates anyway, even if they're right off the package. I just try to stay in the ballpark (and I generally underestimate my exercise calories burned) and it's been working so far.

I'm quite sure I'll have to keep tracking even after I reach my goal. My thinking about food is so disordered that I'll never be able to trust my own judgement about how much is enough. Sometimes it feels like I'm trading one obsessive behavior for another, but at least tracking calories is less destructive than eating obsessively.

I feel the same. Unlike one of the other posters, my memory for isn't that great---it never has been (I think it's genetic; my dad was the same). I'm also not a good estimator, which is why tracking is so important to me. Couple that deficiency with my history if "picking" while cooking or being in the kitchen, and that's a recipe for weight gain (poor pun!).

I agree with kaplods that statistics are often skewed and only tell us what is true for a certain select group of people. I've learned that it is much more important to do what works for us individually, even if 99.9% of the population does the opposite. I am interested in statistics, but I will not let them discourage me from doing something that works for me.

I think we've learned as part of the way "dieting is done" is to believe there are certain things we can and can't do forever... and I think that's putting the cart before the horse.

Like when we say that "low-carb eating is unsustainable..."

Why?

Because people love carbs and can't imagine a life without them.


So, if you find (as I did) that low-carb is the only food plan on which you can lose weight without feeling insanely hungry - do you give up, or do you find a way to do what it takes.

And I think that's the way to look at some of these statisitcs.

I think it's safe to say that 100% of successful maintainers are willing to do and are doing what it takes to maintain their weight loss.

And really that's all you need to be open to.

I have no idea what it's going to take to lose the rest of my weight, or what it's going to take to keep it off... I suspect it's more than I'm doing now (but for now, what I'm doing is enough to keep losing, so that's all I have to worry about for now).

But one thing I've stopped doing is deciding that what I'm doing now is unsustainable. I'm not doing anything now that I'm not willing to do forever - including documenting my food.

I've considered planning all my meals a day, week, or even month in advance. I haven't tried that yet, but if that's what it took to get and keep the weight off, I think I could do it.

If brushing my teeth 20 times a day was what I had to do, I could do that.

If I had to learn calculus and advanced physics, I'd be in big trouble.


I think we tend to think a lot of weight maintenance behaviors are harder to incorporate into daily life than they really are, because we're taught to think that way.

I have to admit that giving up bread was extremely difficult, even after I discovered that wheat was actually making me sick (and the "problem skin" I've had since puberty is only a problem when I eat wheat or tons of sugar).

Learning to give up wheat has been far harder than giving up almost all other sugary and starchy carbs combined. And most of the wheat-substitutes either still caused problelms or were very poor substitutes (why can't they make a gluten-free bread that actually has a true breadlike texture and flavor that doesn't cost a million dollars a loaf and that doesn't mold within in three days?)

It's ironic that I thought low-carb was unsustainable when I didn't know that I had to eliminate wheat. Now, it doesn't seem all that bad. Is wheat really that essential to well-being (apparently I thought so).

It was hard to envision giving up sugar (it still is), but when I eat refined sugar I get sick. Is sugar really so awesome that I need to eat it, even though it makes me sick? Or do I learn to kick sugar to the curb.

I'm uncomfortable with the overuse of the word "addiction" when it comes to food, but I'm really starting to realize that I do have something very close to an addiction when it comes to wheat and sugar, and the flavor combo of fat/salt/sugar (and according to David Kessler in The End of Overeating - it's a propensity that all mammals may have genetically programmed into them, though there are genetic and environmental factors that can make the attraction more or less severe).

I think it all boils down to doing what ya gotta do, whatever that is.

I'm so glad I posted this - many of you hit on the problem of statistics. I didn't even think of that angle!

It seems too authoritarian to say there is only one way to do something, or you will fail. If I am not counting every bite and lick while losing, then I assume I can maintain without counting the bites and licks.

I also always round my calories to make adding faster. Sometimes I have to guess how much something is, based on past experience. If I had to do the same thing that 90% of maintainers do, then I would have to maintain in a way that I didn't lose the weight.

Also, I know maintaining is not easy, but somewhere along the way good habits do kick in and guide our actions. I feel like this statistic is saying we must always be drill sargeants over what we eat, never able to trust ourselves, thus it discredits the fact that we can, over a period of time, modify our behavior to make better choices.

And, as InsideMe brought out, being overly obsessive often leads to burn-out. It also, unfortunately, reminds me of some of the rigidity people with EDs employ (no offense to anyone - this is my little, tiny perspective). I'm trying to get far away from that behavior.

so, yeah, middle-ground is for me. I suppose that will put me in the other 10%.

I agree.....I think it can help if it fits your personality type....But I think it encourages an obsession with food that is unhealthy. In America, food takes too much of a priority in our lives. It seems like everything centers around what we are going to eat, what we haven't eaten, what we shouldn't eat, what they want you to eat....blah, blah, blah. I think it makes food to much of a focal point.

I'd always assumed "every bite, lick or taste" was rhetoric rather than a literal description.