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-   -   How do you keep track ( or do you?) (https://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/weight-loss-support/248707-how-do-you-keep-track-do-you.html)

Bones1928 12-15-2011 09:35 PM

I keep track of my calorie intake on an excel spreadsheet. This is week three. It has been a real eye-opener!

flourless 12-16-2011 11:57 AM

I keep two separate things. The first is my spreadsheet. It has:
a tab for data entry, where I record daily weight and weekly measurements. I can get up in the morning, stand on the scale, drop a number on the spreadsheet and be done for awhile.
a tab for exercise. I track the number of miles I've bicycled, the number of miles I walked. The number of minutes of other exercise and any notes or details. This tab calculates my 7-day bicycle mileage, which is how I know if I'm generally on-track for getting enough exercise.
a trends and graphs tab. This has some aggregate numbers - total trend loss, days in use, loss per day, loss per week, loss last week, loss last 2 weeks, previous 2 week loss, loss last 30 days. It also has a big graph of scale weight and trend weight (with marks for CD1 and ovulation).
a trend weight tab. This is scale weight, trend weight, variance (difference between trend and scale), BMI and 7-day loss.
a planning tab. This is where I keep all my goals. Looking at the goals can sometimes make me crazy, so I keep them kind of out of sight. Right now it says I've lost .86lb since my last weigh in (Monday) and that my plan is to lose 1.07lb by my Monday weigh in. It calculates the number of weeks remaining before goal and the target weights based on the Key's prediction weight-loss curve, which I've been tracking pretty well.
a calculations tab. This is under-the-hood stuff. Constants, formulas, etc.
a cycle patterns tab. I retain water at ovulation. And just before TOM. This tab has a graph based on cycle day, as well as columns of scale weight based on cycle day. It's nice because I can say "oh, my scale weight might be up, but I'm down 14lb from this cycle day LAST cycle"
This is an utterly obsessive amount of information, and 90% of the time, I drop a weight on the first tab in the morning and don't look at it again until I record my exercise at the end of the day. But I sometimes like to look at the other numbers, and this way I only had to set them up once. It also does almost everything with trend weight, which is a really good reminder to me that the trend is what matters, not what I see on the scale.

The other tool I use for recording things is what I call my "weekly sheets". I have one (double-sided) sheet a week. Each side is divided into quarters, one for each day of the week and one that's just lines, for whatever I feel like using it for. It has a few lines for me to log what I ate, "day rating", and checkboxes for servings of various foods I want to eat more of or minimize and a couple of lines for notes. I can do a whole day in a couple of minutes and it's a nice tool for reflection or planning. I keep them for about a month in case I'm curious about a trend, and then I toss them.

darway 12-17-2011 08:39 PM

I found tracking to be helpful. When I was in a plateauing phase, I could look back a the progress I'd made ... and understand how long it took just to get there. I'd ask myself: "Am I really willing to backslide?" Well, NO!

It also helps to mentally drive home, how weight loss slows down toward the tail of a diet. The easy "couple pounds a week" losses that were available at first, just don't happen anymore. So you can recalibrate your expectations to reality and be satisfied with a pound, or even half-pound.

It's the progress that matters. Even very minor losses do accrue as time goes by, and get you closer to goal.

Justwant2Bhealthy 12-17-2011 09:07 PM

I just keep track of what I eat in a shortcut file on my PC screen; I click on it and fill in what I eat as I go through the day. I did try two online sites at first, but this was much quicker. I have two small calorie/portion & nutrient books as guides. It looks like this ...

BF -- 1 x egg/chz on tst + banana + 2 coffee = 360
L -- wg cheeze sandwich + tomato soup = 425
D -- fish & coleslaw salad = 450
SNX -- hm muffin, peanuts, tea = 300
D/T -- 1535

Aunrio 12-17-2011 09:13 PM

I use livestrong.com too. I track food and exercise with brutal honesty. I know I had five cookies, so that is 2.5 servings.


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