Food logging hack

[Daves_Not_Here]

I discovered a food-logging "trick" that works well for me.  I've never seen it described before, so I thought I would share with the y'all here (maybe I should have used a click-bait title like "Use this weird trick to effortlessly log your food so your jaw will drop and grocers will hate you.")

My intention is to accurately log all my eating.  The only problems are with the "all" part, the "accurately" part, and the ongoing effort to do it.  Without a scale, it's hard to estimate how many calories in random handfuls of almonds (more than you think as it turns out), or a medley of fruit, or a salad with dressing, or piece of chicken, etc.  The Fitbit app on my phone makes it pretty easy to log food, but it's still tedious and easy for me to omit items.  So, because some of the things we eat are calorie dense, I think it's pretty easy to be off by 500 calories.  This is the difference between losing a pound a week versus hitting a plateau.

So what I started to do while I'm making breakfast is to weigh and log the day's food in bulk, all at once.  Before I even start my day, I know pretty accurately how many calories I will consume, along with the macro nutrients.  If I don't like the total, I can tweak the portions as necessary.  So I will leave the house with a cooler containing say 1,550 calories of exactly the food I've prescribed for myself.  

Then during the day, I can graze away without having to think about or log eating, because it's already done.  Seeing how much food I have remaining in containers causes me to naturally adjust my intake.  I like to get to 6:00 PM with a surplus of fat and protein remaining.  When I finish that, I'm satiated and not tempted to snack later at night.   So, during the day, it takes no effort or willpower to eat 1,550 calories of exactly the nutrient portions I have chosen for myself.  It's easy to resist the random office donut because I don't have cravings.

Sounds too OCD?  Maybe it is, but consider: by spending only 5-10 minutes in the morning (which is available since I'm cooking anyway), I avoid all the time and effort to log food during the day, plus having to decide what to eat, plus having to exert self-discipline to avoid excessive eating, plus trying to get my macro portions right on the fly.  Oh yeah, I also save money by not eating out.  And, when I do eat out, I now have a good eyeball for portion weights.  That's a great ROI on 10 minutes of effort.  Plus, my coworkers take it as further evidence that I'm completely crazy, which enhances the mad scientist personal brand I've been cultivating.  So you call it OCD, I call it mindfulness and intentional living.

Hope some find this of value!

[WendyB]

If it works for you go for it.

I like to see what I actually ate. Some times It can help me if I over did on something.

[tractorlegs]

Yep. OCD. 

Nevertheless well thought out. 

[Baltoscott]

I like it.  

It is a version of weekly meal planning/prepping that many people do.  For a couple hours on the weekend prep many of your meals for the week, put them in meal size containers, and throw them in the fridge/freezer so that you've got some/many/all of your meals covered for the week.  

The practice can work really well if you aren't also preparing food for other family members, but even then there is a lot of prep you can do, and -- as you point out -- you can pre-calculate a lot of your weekly calories this way.  

[GinaLin]

I do something similar. When I get home from the store, I will prep most of the food I bought and put it into portion size containers. I know what the calorie count is for each serving and it helps me be aware of what/how much I am eating. We have crazy schedules sometimes and having it ready to go means I can toss it into a cooler/lunch box and stay with healthier eating choices.

Since I calculated portions ahead of time, I can log my food and see if I am above or below where I planned to be calorie wise. This is especially helpful for me if I do end up going for a planned dinner out.

[stebs]

Sometimes when im real serious I will get the scale out and portion out entire packages of things into individual bags. For instance, I might take a bag of chips and weigh it out (usually 28 grams) into individual bags. Then when I want some chips, I just grab a bag. Doesn't satisfy me? I might grab another. Then when I go to log it into fitbit, all I need to know is how many bags I had.