Not Tracking your food is a big mistake!

[Minimel 45]

MyFitnessPal lets you add your own recipes with portion sizes so you can quickly add your meals to the tracker. It seems a little delusional to me to think any of us got to the point that we needed wls by overeating and will miraculously not need to track afterward. I'm afraid you're setting yourself up for failure if you don't.

[doingit4me2017 93]

I need to track, with life being so busy, I forget what I have ate or drink if I don't track it. I use to use the Lose it app, which I still like, but just switched to my fitness pal app, and liking it. I have a fitbit too, I probably could just use that for food, but haven't tried it yet.

[Navigating the Wilderness 824]

Quote

Food addiction is a hard one as we need it to survive and can't get away from it..

Yes, yes, yes! I truly believe it is a lifelong journey to deal with it.

As far as tracking, I do not do it, but then again I am only 5 weeks out and eat the same 3 things every day in the same quantity, so no need for it at this point. I will say when I was tracking in the past it got to the point where I felt like it was a burden. Having said that, if you hit a stall or gain weight, then yes tracking would be very important to evaluate what you are doing right and wrong.

[gjb2017 71]

Yes, I use the fitbit app to track all my food and the portions are customizable and you are able to add foods that are not already listed on there, or create new entries where you put in the info for meals you make at home and portion sizes. For me its the only way I stay on track and ensure I continue to lose and break stalls as well like others said. It has been working great for me and it REALLY keeps me accountable to physically be able to SEE what I'm doing and not just guess. To each their own, but I definitely recommend it to keep you on track especially in the beginning or if you find yourself getting off track! I have lost 60 pounds in 3 months and feel a lot of it is due to staying accountable, so do what works for you best! [emoji4]

I have a Fitbit. Is it easy to track food on the app? I now write everything down in snore book.

[Cape Crooner 589]

I have a Fitbit. Is it easy to track food on the app? I now write everything down in snore book.

I was sleeved in 2015 and I no longer track. I did track for close to a year and developed an arsenal of healthy 100-200 calorie meals and Snacks. I strive to eat from this arsenal 85% of the time.

My issue comes during vacations and heavy party times (like the holidays). I had almost a month of "no scale" eating and drinking. I ended up about 5 lbs over, but 4 days back on track, I'm almost back to where I want to be.

I still use a fitness tracker and exceed my goal of 70,000 steps/week.

If I ever start to go out of control again, I'll start logging again. I use Loseit. It's very good and it makes it easy to create your own recipes.

The biggest advantage of both is that you can't fool yourself!

[BigUtahMan 207]

So I don't always track what I eat in fact I rarely do. In the beginning ( nearly 14 weeks ago) I was so in tune with what I was having. Gradually that has worn off. The weight was coming off slowly so tracking didn't seem to matter. Then started the bit n pieces of "slider" foods. I had read about this in others stories and would think "oh never would I let myself be like that".... how wrong I was.
The potato chips and small biscuits seem to go down with no issues. I wasn't sick and it didn't fill me up so what was the problem. Peanut paste then started to become a favourite snack straight off the spoon. It's ok it's protein!!.. Icecream was another easy food to go down and it seemed to help my sweet cravings as I was only having a little so what did it matter?..
A bit here and there soon became more and more!!..
Today i decided to track what I had eaten as best I could.. to own what I was doing.. the damage I was doing.
You see like most of us here that decided to get this procedure I have a food addiction. Something that is NOT fixed by having a sleeve. They take some of your stomach not the part of your brain that controls this. I have really no clue how to fix it but maybe the best I can do is to some how control it. That's hard!!..
Nope I didn't have counselling before my sleeve to help me. I honestly thought I could do it alone.
I feel now I am more consumed with "food" then I ever was. What a shit position to be in.
So today I was so over my Carb intake it was terrible. My Protein intake low... and my fats should of been more. If I was counting calories I'd say at 1400 Cals was too much for me.
But from now and into tomorrow and beyond I shall be accountable for what I put into my mouth. Yeah I'll stuff up a little but mostly I shall be on track.
Food addiction is a hard one as we need it to survive and can't get away from it..

I am an addict as well, I have no secrets to share other than the same exact thing happened to me. I was eating hundreds of "exception" calories a day, and was wondering why I was in a stall!!!

I have since made the decision to temporarily cut out carbs from my diet, and it has gotten much easier. Carbs influence my cravings the most. So what was 100% unmanageable has become quite manageable. You can do it, as I can do it! but I haven't found an easy way how to yet, but that is ok too.



Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

[Airstream88 361]

I don't track anything except Protein grams, multigrain and fruit servings, and fluids. I know if I don't make the protein target, my weight loss will slow down. I jot these down in a little book I got from Amazon ("Food Journal"). My program is to eat 5 mini-meals a day every 3 to 4 hours without grazing in between. At least 4 meals must have 3oz of protein which I always eat first so I feel the restriction of my stomach. All multigrain and fruit servings must be accompanied by a protein. I am about 95% compliant with the no grazing rule. Stop the grazing!

[Bears_Chick 58]

I understand we all have our own views and different ways of losing weight, but I just thought I would throw this out there: the experts all say that tracking is important. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-kirkpatrick-ms-rd-ld/how-writing-everything-do_b_780535.html

That is just one of hundreds of articles. I'm not saying that tracking is easy. It's not. It's work. MyFitnessPal has made it MUCH easier than it used to be. I can log 1 oz of food. It's great! But I know for a fact that if I don't log my food, I'm probably eating something that I forgot about, even if it's an apple... yes, I still eat fruit. I get my 80g of Protein a day, and I know that because I track it. I can look back at the past four months at how many calories I've had, how much protein, carbs, fat, etc... so if there's a moment when I only lost one lb., I can look at see if there's a trend. Did I not workout as much? Did I eat more? So tracking is not just about making sure you didn't eat too much in one day; it's about keeping a record and looking back at that record to see if one thing works better for your body than another.

Again, I know that some may disagree... but a lot of professionals (those dang skinny people LOL) say that tracking is important. So I'm doing my best to listen.

Oh... and my not-fat husband is tracking now too... and he loves it.

[IveGotThePower 395]

Everyone is different. My professional nut has told me that it is fine for me to not track my food. She advocates learning your own internal queues and making educated choices. Tracking is a tool and sure you can use it if you need or want to, but I think sometimes you don't need or want to or it is more of a hindrance than a help. Find what works for you. Know that you have choices.

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

I love that everyone in this thread that doesn't track is fresh from surgery. Good luck with that long term.

food tracking is the absolute key in my opinion. I think tracking and a scale are just as important as the actual sleeve.

The first 6 months post op, you can get away with a lot because the sleeve is doing all your work, after that it is basically all you, so you need the support of tracking unless you want to regain.

Saying that what you eat isn't able to be tracked is a cop out. You can track anything. I use the LoseIt App and I make recipes and split the recipes into servings and it is accurate. I add things that are not in the app using USDA calories and nutrition information. You can track anything if you want to. I also try to avoid eating things that are a pain to track, like chicken wings.

I have friends that have not had WLS and by tracking because I track they have lost weight and been very successful. And they are using eating plans they used before without success.

Tracking is easy mode once you get it setup. I also eat a lot of the same things so that makes it easy to track them.

The benefits to tracking as I see them.

1) You learn nutrition better than you know it now

2) You can see that one [insert item here] isn't the end of the world, and you can adjust the rest of your eating to accommodate it so your macros for the day work.

3) Seeing the calories and macros for some items really makes you question their value, making it easier to avoid them

4) Security. If you track everything you eat and you stall, you know it isn't your food. If you gain 2 pounds overnight, you know it isn't you food.

[BigViffer 3,544]

@OutsideMatchInside - I had purposefully skipped this thread until I saw another vet's name pop up in the unread feed. So I finally read this thread and you pretty much said exactly what I was going to say. It's no secret that I am big into tracking:

Every bite I have eaten has been logged. Even the alcohol I drank. Every homecooked meal has it's recipe added to MyFitPal library. I don't know about any one else, but it is of immense help to me. My wife measures everything when cooking and then when serving. She packs my lunch with measurements or barcodes so I always have as accurate information as possible. According to MyFitPal I have 653 days in a row logged.

So yeah, logging is a good idea for me.

[MBird 298]

I go between tracking and not, but that's due to tracking for the last ten years. At first, before phone apps, I tracked by hand in a journal, and it was the best thing I've ever done in my life because the information stays in my head. Now I use the Fitbit app, before that I used MyFitnessPal. I have a lot of memory committed regarding foods, my dietician was amazed I knew as much as her.

I only track to see what certain food combos regarding weight loss and gain, result in - this helps me understand how my body works. I automatically, due to tracking for years, know how my body responds to certain food combos and foods.

Also investing in a scale helps. The scale is important, so is measuring.

I personally feel that tracking is crucial, especially for people who have never done it or are just out of WLS. Without tracking we have too many questions about why our bodies are gaining, losing, bloated, or stalled.

[Greensleevie 451]

5 hours ago, OutsideMatchInside said:

I love that everyone in this thread that doesn't track is fresh from surgery. Good luck with that long term.

food tracking is the absolute key in my opinion. I think tracking and a scale are just as important as the actual sleeve.

The first 6 months post op, you can get away with a lot because the sleeve is doing all your work, after that it is basically all you, so you need the support of tracking unless you want to regain.

Saying that what you eat isn't able to be tracked is a cop out. You can track anything. I use the LoseIt App and I make recipes and split the recipes into servings and it is accurate. I add things that are not in the app using USDA calories and nutrition information. You can track anything if you want to. I also try to avoid eating things that are a pain to track, like chicken wings.

I have friends that have not had WLS and by tracking because I track they have lost weight and been very successful. And they are using eating plans they used before without success.

Tracking is easy mode once you get it setup. I also eat a lot of the same things so that makes it easy to track them.

The benefits to tracking as I see them.

1) You learn nutrition better than you know it now

2) You can see that one [insert item here] isn't the end of the world, and you can adjust the rest of your eating to accommodate it so your macros for the day work.

3) Seeing the calories and macros for some items really makes you question their value, making it easier to avoid them

4) Security. If you track everything you eat and you stall, you know it isn't your food. If you gain 2 pounds overnight, you know it isn't you food.

You hit the nail on the head.

I'm over 3 year out, and you wouldn't believe how much more I can eat as opposed to when I was a year or even two years post surgery. I can eat what are supposed to be "normal" portions at this point. Not tracking causes over eating, and that causes regain (something I'm all too familiar with). It's VERY short sighted and frankly naive to think you'll only be able to eat a few bites of food forever. No wonder almost 50% of WLS patients regain with the terrible advice I've seen in this thread.

[OutsideMatchInside 10,166]

26 minutes ago, Greensleevie said:

You hit the nail on the head.

I'm over 3 year out, and you wouldn't believe how much more I can eat as opposed to when I was a year or even two years post surgery. I can eat what are supposed to be "normal" portions at this point. Not tracking causes over eating, and that causes regain (something I'm all too familiar with). It's VERY short sighted and frankly naive to think you'll only be able to eat a few bites of food forever. No wonder almost 50% of WLS patients regain with the terrible advice I've seen in this thread.

I am surprised at how much I can eat at this point also. I can only imagine what it will be like a year or 2 from now. Tracking helps me stay on track (ha!). I can still be more than full and satisfied with 4 ounces of meat, but if I didn't portion and track 4 ounces, I could easily eat 6 or 7. When we get beyond meat, I can eat almost normal sized portions of things. My sleeve isn't stretched at all but 8 ounces of the wrong food, or even good food can be too many calories.

Your restriction won't save you forever, only good habits will.

[IveGotThePower 395]

Agreed, good habits have got me to this point. Always focusing on healthy food choices. Sorry, guys, tracking isn't for me right now. Been there, done that. For me, I do better by being mindful. But we all need to make our own choices and do what works for us. Wishing you all the very best.