Food Tracking Tips for the Long Term

[Jennifer Bench]

I know that tracking calories and portions during the W30 was as simple as using our hand size and our plates. However, now that I am moving forward with the lifestyle, I am finding it necessary (especially in situations where treats like dark chocolate or eating out is involved) to use a food tracking system to help me stay accountable.

Some questions:

Is there a ratio of fat/protein/carbs that is recommended to keep us as close to the health level the W30 does? What percentages of each do you recommend? And if it is a "what works best for you approach", how does one figure that out? Where would I begin? What do you think of Mark Sisson's Carbohydrate Curve?

Also, I know that overall calories do matter, right? I believe there have been some posts about making sure not to eat as if we are a vacuum Lol. Is there a good way to figure out a range that works?

Any tips you can give would be appreciated

[Derval]

All I can tell you is that before I started w30 (but was eating primal) I used MFP and gave myself 1600 cals (female, 38,5ft3, 125+lbs) and was *roughly* hitting 50% fat, 30% protein and 20%carbs.

hth a bit.

[Jay]

Might I suggest learing to eat intuitively? As I'm going through it, I can say that it is not easy but worth it.

Until paleo/Whole 30, I had always said that the only way I could lose/manage my weight was to track all of my calories in a food journal. For me, the biggest drawback to this is that I was always focused on food. Either planning it, eating it, or tracking it.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this way of life is not tracking calories. I'm still trying to learn the difference of truly being hungry vs. just wanting to eat but it is becoming increasing clear to me. It is getting easier for me to just eat whatever I want (paleo/whole 30) whenever I want. I'm now much less of a between meal snacker, don't stuff myself so much at meals, and can be ok with the uncomfortable hungry feeling I get if I'm in a situation that delays a meal by an hour or two.

To be honest, I don't know to what degree calories matter anymore but I do know that now that I'm eating healthy it all seems to just work itself out.

[Johnny M]

This is a tough question. Part of what happens when you commit to a whole30 and follow the rough serving guidelines is you learn to trust your own body's signals and cues. I would highly discourage tracking macronutrients. If you TRUST the program, the natural variations in the inaccuracies of the eyeballed servings method will balance out. We all make better progress focusing on quality food and not measurements. I often refer to measuring my food as the "dark place" of health and dieting. I've had what I consider to be an eating disorder, manifested in obsessive measuring an journaling and I think the stress of that outweighs and negates the health benefits. Please try and trust the program.

All that said, if you feel the need to be accountable id suggest you start a general log on the forum. We will all gladly check in to encourage and guide you! You can log meals without macronutrients and 9 out of 10 times still be extremely successful! Does that help or am I missing part of your struggle?

[Derval]

I read it that Jennifer has completed her whole30 and wants to track her food from now on....

But I do agree with Jay & Johnny that it so much better to learn to eat as much as you need by sense.

This is the first time I have not tracked/logged etc in almost 3 years & it is so freeing. I still have a ways to go in judging my portion size in relation to my hunger but I am not going back to the number crunching no matter how much my MFP pals beg!

[Jennifer Bench]

Thanks for all of the feedback I DO agree that the "ideal" method for moving forward would be do be able to do so without having to track food intake, and to be able to eat "intuitively". However, perhaps I am not quite there yet....I think many others might be on the same boat as well, where the everyday life beyond the Whole 30 can get "out of control" easily. For example, I can eat Whole30ish during the weekdays pretty consistently, but when I get to the weekends with the schedule being more likely to change and include all kinds of family meet ups and such, I can easily lose my "intuitiveness" and begin to overeat (even on the good, clean, approved foods)!

So, let's assume that the tracking will not be forever (I surely wouldn't want it to be), but what about as a step to be accountable until the habits of making great choices consistently can be made? The reason I ask about macros is because the system I'm using is tracking them for me, so I figured I might as well ask if Dallas/Melissa have a stance on that as well (percentages on fat/protein/carbs-since a lot of other leaders in the Paleo seem to have different takes on it)? Also, it has helped me to see that if I have goals in leaning out, or perhaps if I have a heavy workout one day, I can see that my food intake seems to match the goals as well.

It sounds to me like most people are just going on intuition and it's working well for all of you? If so, how did you get to that point? or were you just normally NOT an emotional eater before? Maybe I'm starting to get off topic...but would love to hear the "official" word on macros and percentages if it's available.

[Renee Lee]

There isn't an official stance on macros, because it totally depends on your context: Are you metabolically deranged, do you have aspirations to competing at the CrossFit games or some other high level sport, do you have any autoimmune issues, do you just want to be happy and healthy and run around with your kids, etc? The answer changes.

If you HAVE to track, I like the "hand sized chunk of protein, fill the rest of the plate with veggies" method. Add more protein/calories if you've been lifting that day. Add more starchy carbs if you've been doing a metabolically demanding workout.

[Casey]

Glad I found this thread, this is all very interesting to me. I am on day 8 of my Whole30, and I originally planned on continueing to roughly track my food (something I've been doing for about a year) just to get an idea of how much carb, fat, protein I'm eating purely for my own interest, and then making sure I was getting enough fiber. And for 7 days, that worked great! I ate intuitively and it was fascinating to see how things paned out -- it's also a great for building recipe where I'm really not sure if there is enough protein in my meals. However, yesterday tracking let me do what I've been doing for years on a "everything in moderation diet" -- I binged, on Whole30 approved foods, but I binged. Fruit and almond butter all the way. I am a very bad intuitive eater, but I know I need to kick the tracker and rely only on my own body. Sometimes I find tracking fun and entertaining, and if I could keep that attitude after my Whole30 so I could make sure I was enforcing good proportions, great. But I know right now I need to take a break and just learn from myself.

When I try to "hold myself accountable" for my treats by tracking (which has totally worked to some degree over the past year), I find that I end up making a lot of sacrifices to get more treats... oh, an oz. of dark chocolate is only this many calories, I'll eat MORE. Even if I don't necessarily want more. For me personally, I think tracking later on could be useful for my main meals, however, I think I'm learning that tracking my indulgences is a bad idea -- when I start thinking of the treats as just numbers, I start to go crazy, and forget that the whole point is overcoming that feeling of uncontrollable binging and insane cravings.

[Kecia Lynn]

I agree with eating intuitively...it's really helped me put food in perspective. That said, I've started to see some weight come back on. As I mention in my sig, I completed a Whole 30 in February, and with the exception of a few additions to my regular diet I'm still eating that way. One big addition was rice...and when I learned that the weight was coming back I figured I had to start dialing down my rice intake. However, after checking out that MDA link Jennifer posted (thanks!) and doing some other research online, I see I may also need to dial down my fruit intake. As someone who used to have to be "in the mood" for fruit, I'm amazed at how much of it I've eaten this year, mainly to stave off hunger (intuitive eating). I'm just getting back into a regular workout routine, combining light weight training with HIIT, and maybe I just need to better time my fruit consumption. Or maybe I just need to try to limit carbs to 100g or less per that MDA link.

All of this is to say that the longer you do this, the more in tune you get with your body's needs, and the easier it is to make adjustments where needed. But it does take time!

[SusanQ22]

For me, eating intuitively requires a lot of positive self-talk... I am constantly having conversations with my body about food... I find that really helps me stay on track... at a birthday party...cake and ice cream look soooo good but between me & my body, we KNOW it's going to make us feel like crap... decision made...

[jenh718]

I understand where you are coming from Jennifer. We can all talk about eating intuitively and listening to our bodies and sure that is ideal but it's simply not the reality for everyone and it does not work for everyone.

I am 37 years old. I have been over eating my whole life and I didn't even know it. I was never into dieting or tracking calories or even weighing myself. I did try to go by how I felt. I assumed because I was eating a relatively whole foods diet (although with too much whole grain foods) that I was fine. Yet as I got older, I kept getting fatter and fatter.

When I started the Whole 30, I was committed to doing it right but *for me* that meant learning about portion sizes and control as well as eating the right foods. So I used a tracker. (MyFitnessPal.com) and for me it was enlightening. When I saw what my actual portions equaled to as far as calories and carbs, it was like a lightbulb went off. I simply eat too much and too large portion sizes and despite successfully completing my Whole 30, the intuition part hasn't fully clicked in. So I am continuing the Whole 30 in a modified way (I am allowing myself some Paleoified treats. Not in the true spirit but I am a baker. It's my profession.) and I am still using a tracker to keep myself on the straight and narrow and to compute the calorie, fat, carb and protein content of the recipes I create.

It works for me.

[rrnelson2]

i think it's worth mentioning that i find it almost impossible to intuitively eat sugar. paleo treats or normal treats, it's still sugar and it's almost impossible to listen to my body while eating it. i love intuitively eating, but when it comes to treats i know i need to limit them to a reasonable portion no matter what my body says. good luck guys!