Food Logging in the Daily Check Ins

hja · Post by **hja** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:54 pm

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I introduced myself over in my daily log.

I was wondering why so many people seem to write down exactly what they ate in their Daily Check In threads. To me one of the big highlights of NoS is that I can leave all of that obsessive listing and logging behind and just count a day as a SUCCESS or FAILURE based on if I ate sweets, snacked, or took seconds.

Mostly I'm wondering if people worry that adding the (small) effort of writing down the contents of their meals will (in the long run) make it more work than it should be. Comes close to the "time consuming and joyless" aspects of other diets, in my mind.

Discuss!

Jammin' Jan · Post by **Jammin' Jan** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:44 pm

I plead guilty to food logging!!!

I have several reasons for doing this:

1)it's a good record of my menus, and I often go back to past posts when I am making up my weekly menu and grocery list.

2)it generates conversation about food. I love to cook, shop, and eat, and besides that, I work in a grocery store and watch the Food Network. As Weird Al Yankovic once said (when asked why so many of his songs were about food): "I owe my life to food!"

3)all this typing keeps me off the streets at night.

Food logging is not required for No-S. Some people find it helps with accountability and others, like me, are just having fun on the internet.

gratefuldeb67 · Post by **gratefuldeb67** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:51 pm

Hey Holli

I personally write down what I ate just as a means of a (albeit semi one sided) discussion.. I don't feel obligated to do this..
It's kind of fun.. I would in no way equate it to strict food journalling and certainly not to calorie counting.. If I am eating a completely new food I will occasionally glance at the calories so I have a vague awareness of how fattening it is... Most of the time I know that Bleu Cheese dressing is more fattening than balsamic vinagrette, etc...

I doubt I would be writing anything down on my own if there wasn't a group involved..

It's just, pardon the food analogy, "chewing the fat"... LOL..
The one interesting thing here is the comparison to what other cultures around the globe view as "normal" eating...
And nobody expects you to write anything other than Success/Failure, if that's what makes you happy..
We certainly don't want you to wander around in a "joyless" state over you checkin thread!
LOL..

Peace and Love,

Deb

nonskanse · Post by **nonskanse** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:00 am

Keeps me on the straight and narrow, but I don't always detail in the food log. I just started last week, but I am an obsessive with number/statistics in general.

It's not un fun for me to do that, I like tracking my food, and I like tracking it a lot more when I see how nice (not superbly low, but less than my output) the calorie count is.

You do what is right for YOU and you will succeed. SUCCESS or FAILURE is perfectly fine, and seems to be the reason Reinhard made that whole thread.

Maybe we just like to brag about success too when it happens, and get comfort when we fail, so we include some details.
But you don't have to! Its YOUR diet!
(hooray!)

carolejo · Post by **carolejo** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:42 am

Sometimes, if I made or ate something particularly yummy, I will note it down in my checkin thread, but mostly I don't write down what I eat. I think this is because I already spend enough time thinking about food and there needs to be some room for other stuff in my life

Interesting points though.
C.

sheepish · Post by **sheepish** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:13 am

I'm doing it mostly because I keep going grocery shopping and then either having fresh veg and stuff left over at the end of the week when I'm going away at the weekend or running out of stuff mid-week. It's annoying me and I figure, if I have a better handle on what I usually eat, it'll happen less often.

But I also figure that, if I keep a food journal, I can then look back on it if I'm not losing weight and see what might be the problem. It's easier to think, say, 'hmmm, maybe I could cut out X' if I can see just how often I'm eating X.

I see what you're getting at though and, as everyone else said, there's no reason why you should keep track of what you're eating if you don't think it's helpful.

That guy · Post by **That guy** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 2:03 pm

I don't go into high detail on my food log, but as others said I can use it as a diagnostic tool if I get stuck. Now that I have the habit (mostly) locked in, I can start changing portions and types of food until I find what works for me.

hja · Post by **hja** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:09 pm

Yeah, my question was largely academic. I found detailed food logging (and calorie counting) to be very useful when I was losing weight. I'm finding it to be a real pain now that I'm maintaining, and the calorie counting also sometimes led to "cheating" by letting me justify three cookies by cutting out dinner. No good.

Thanks for all the responses and thoughts.

Post by **reinhard** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:45 pm

Welcome, hja.

From the everyday systems home page:

None of the systems require you to keep track of anything beyond the day of the week, what planet you are on, etc. You have too many things to keep track of already.

But, in fairness, some people at some times in their lives get some benefit from it. And tracking isn't just on or off. You can get accountability without much pain by just logging "success/failure" in the daily log forum. Or, when success has become a given, just resolve to log the aberrant failure and borderline "funny stuff" (along with an occasional, "hello, I'm still doing this.") This tactic actually utilizes your dislike of logging to keep you in line: no funny stuff, no need to write.

Reinhard