A question about journaling food intake
 

Hello! I am new to this site (just found it yesterday!) and am so surprised and happy to have found a forum of people actively maintaining!:carrot:

So, my first post is a question for anyone who's been maintaining their loss for at least a year or longer....Do you still keep a daily written (computer or paper) journal of your food intake? This is kind of a burning issue for me because I lost 60 pounds between December '05 and August '06 and have been maintaining the loss since. Until the beginning of this month I've kept a daily journal of my food intake - sometimes by calories using fitday, sometimes with just foods/portion sizes, sometimes with just the foods themselves.

At the beginning of the month i just got bored writing down everything I ate all day, especially because it really does not vary a whole lot so I totally abandoned recording it. Now I'm wondering if that's a good thing (a step forward) or not (a regression)?

I'd love to hear the perspective of those of you who continue to record - and those who do not.

I've food journaled in stages. When I was actively losing weight, I food journaled in Fitday in order to have a pretty good calorie estimate. After maintaining, I got tired of Fitday (I do so much cooking, that custom recipes just drove me nuts), so just journaled using the threads on this board (there was a great Daily Menu thread for awhile that I participated in, similar threads come up all the time, or you can start one yourself). After awhile, I got tired of that too, so I rarely actually journal what I eat (although I keep a running mental calorie estimate during the day - very rough, ballpark numbers).

The few times when my weight has swung up, I journaled until I reached the weight I wanted to be again.

You should do what is right for you, if you can successfully maintain your weight loss without journaling, and journaling is starting to annoy you, why do it? I would keep other tools of accountability - weekly weighing, for example.

I dont most of the time, but I have a hard and fast red flag weight and when I hit that weight I do until I am back down to my green flag weight.

I sporadically count at other times just to keep things in check. Usually only if I feel like I have been slipping but it isnt on the scale yet.

One of the things I do - because like Glory I cook a lot and it gets mind numbing to enter recipes - is I often count just until before dinner (Breakfast , Lunch & snacks) and I know from history that I will be within a wide but acceptable range if I hit a target by the end of snacks.

Hi Cym and welcome to Maintainers :welcome3: !

I've been maintaining for 5+ years and still journal. I've discovered that I'm much less likely to stray off plan if I plan my meals in advance and log them into Fitday before I eat them. Of course, the plan is never written in stone and I go back and change it if the day turns out a little differently.

Sometimes I never finish journaling the day either because I know what dinner is in my head. Heavens, I'm sure I know the calorie count to just about anything in my head, but it's way too easy to forget that I ate something if I don't write it down. And sometimes not wanting to journal it will keep me from eating something. :p

It's really just a tool to keep me on track. For me, personally, I'm reluctant to give up any of the tools that helped me get to goal. But I'm probably a little over the top in my concerns about regaining the weight. :dizzy:

Why not experiment and if you continue to maintain without journaling, then you have your answer? :)

Welcome again and we look forward to hearing lots more from you!

Hmmm, I keep a loose written list much of the time, though like the other cooks, recipes get to be a pain. When I was doing WW strictly, I figured out the points values for all my stand-bys. Now I journal when I'm feeling out-of-control, and when I do have a bad day. I'm usually surprised to find I really haven't eaten as many calories as I feared. :)