Anyone tracking JUST protein? How?

[mistysj 1,939]

I will start by saying that I know this thread might get controversial. I would like to know what you are doing but I don't want anyone to tell anyone else they are doing it wrong. I also don't want anyone to deviate from the plan that their surgical team has worked out for them. I strongly feel like you need to follow the letter of the law, at least until at least one year post-op. I have actually been deviating from my surgical team's plan BY rigorously tracking.

I'm finding MyFitnessPal a little bit "heavy weight" and thinking about trying to track my food in a lighter weight, easier way. It seems to me that if I follow the "rules", and get enough Protein, I will have a tough time screwing things up because I won't even have room for many carbs. It seems overkill to track calories because again, if I get in my Protein I am never very high. I might get some value in tracking carbs along with protein.

I can't hide calories in MFP. I'm also just tired of tracking every bite, honestly. I have been tracking every bite for most of the last 12 years. My nutritionist and my therapist have actually both encouraged me to work toward tracking in my head. I would like to find a middle ground. I'm not quite ready to let go of the security of some kind of tracking and don't know if I ever will.

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

Tough one.

My practice actually doesn't say anything about this. I started tracking before surgery, before coming onto this web site, etc. Mostly as an accountability thing. Like you say, it is impossible to hide calories when you track. At the same time, when I try to take a day off (like Christmas) somehow I go back and track anyway. However, I haven't been tracking for years; one of the reasons I started was because I was sure that at least some of my issues stem from underestimating my eating habits.

Interestingly, this is all for me. I don't use MFP and I don't really want to share my eating habits widely…not because I'm ashamed but because I don't think it would help me to know what others are doing or not doing. I'm also still at the point of re-introducing foods, so I don't always have a sense of what the proportions of protein/carbs/calories are.

Then again, I'm finding that this period of time (I'm at 10 weeks) is a big adjustment. The training wheels are off, and although I am sure I could call my doctor's office for guidance, I don't actually see them again for 3 weeks. Haven't seen them since my 4 week appointment. And the appts are 1 week, 4 week, 3 months. Seems to me it's a long time to potentially set habits that aren't good before being "straightened out."

What if you try to take a week off and judge only by what the scale says? I'm sure your habits are reasonably well ingrained by now.

[mistysj 1,939]

What are you using to track, if I may ask? I have a friend who had surgery a couple weeks before me and just tracks Protein in her head. I envy her. She is already at goal, had a little less to lose than me. I will be interested to see how she maintains. She didn't want a heavyweight approach. She also doesn't use web forums either. She is focused on living her life with all the benefits of being smaller. I feel like a huge amount of my brain is taken up with tracking and reading these forums. I have to say this is not the "after" that I envisioned. I thought I would spend more time outdoors and active, and spending more energy on my professional life. Instead I feel so distracted by all of this that I feel like I am missing out. It's hard to explain.

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

I know what you mean. I just spent 30 minutes reading a thread from March about food addiction and trying to decide whether it was worth replying. In the end, I decided not to. That time would have been better spent doing a lot of other things.

I think some reflection is good; but some days I know I take the reading and commenting way too far.

I use mynetdiary to track. Why? I had both MFP and MND downloaded but for some reason when I was ready to start MFP wouldn't open right on my iPhone. It is that simple.

[mistysj 1,939]

I was just playing with MND today. I had bought it for my iPad and forgot (probably years ago) so I reinstalled it and played with it. It is a lot different from MFP and i didn't find it as quick to enter things but maybe I just haven't got the knack yet. I did like that you can hide calories (though you still have to have a calorie target).

Sometimes I like the social aspect of mfp but again sometimes it is a distraction too. I think I have OCD and everything is a potential OCD monster.

[MichiganChic 3,262]

I track calories and Protein. I HAVE to track (aka log/write down) every bite I put into my mouth. I wish it were not true, I wish I could do this another way, but I can't. I can always consume more than I should if left to my own devices. I need very little food/calories to lose weight. They mystery of why I was so heavy is gone. I weighed over 300 pounds because I'm super efficient at storing calories. I need to eat around 900 to lose, and I'm not sure yet what maintenance will look like. I can tell you I let myself eat what I wanted for about 4-5 hours 5 times over the two week holiday period, and I gained 6 pounds! In truth, I didn't eat that much, but it was probably a total of 2500 calories on each of those days. I am working to get that weight off now, but that was a huge slap in the face. I could get right back up to where I started if I don't watch it. So, I applaud those who can track in their heads, those who can "listen to their body", but I'm not one of them. My body and my brain both are liars about food, lol!

[gmanbat 5,889]

I always hesitate to post on threads that discuss tracking because I never have tracked. From my bodybuilding days I had a general idea of the Protein content of foods and just added it up in my head. My program emphasizes exercise and calorie counting never was a need for me.

However, I am fully supportive of tracking. I would suggest streamlining it to the bare minimum that is effective in helping you maintain fat loss.

Life is for living, not one long accountants nightmare. Reminds me of tourists who are constantly taking pictures. How can you really get into the experience of something when all you are doing is reporting on it? You go home, all you have is pictures.

Again, I support tracking. I support tracking. I do. Really.

[Georgia 2,908]

I always hesitate to post on threads that discuss tracking because I never have tracked. From my bodybuilding days I had a general idea of the Protein content of foods and just added it up in my head. My program emphasizes exercise and calorie counting never was a need for me. However, I am fully supportive of tracking. I would suggest streamlining it to the bare minimum that is effective in helping you maintain fat loss. Life is for living, not one long accountants nightmare. Reminds me of tourists who are constantly taking pictures. How can you really get into the experience of something when all you are doing is reporting on it? You go home, all you have is pictures. Again, I support tracking. I support tracking. I do. Really.

Aww, come on Gmanbat, you know you are trying to be nice! Ha! I, for one, didn't track the first three plus years. Wound up regaining about 30 pounds not understanding I was allowing old habits and junk/sliders to rule. So, for me, most days I track just to make myself disciplined. Also, I finally discovered how much I can actually consume (TTEE BMR) and not gain. So maintenance now after months to regain goal and lower THAT goal, is different than before. The farther out you are from goal I think most of us realize that we still have a lot of "fatty" thought processes and our bodies just DONT react like people who have never been obese.

[Indigo1991 1,612]

Misty, know exactly where you are on this. I didn't have surgery to replace one obsession with another so consciously have not tracked. I wanted to be like friends who are naturally slim who don't obsess about calories etc but who have a handle on what they eat.

So what I have focused on is knowing exactly what a portion of Protein looks like and how much of it I need to eat in a day, like gmanbat. I wanted to live and like you, I wanted to do other things without constantly worrying about food and weight.

It has been so liberating not counting calories - it had never worked for me before. It was hard to start with trusting doing things by sight and in my head. I wasn't confident that I was getting things right. But I hit my goal, my bloodwork is perfect - and more importantly, in the last few months, I have spent time on other stuff not obsessing about food or weight...

So hard to give advice other than to say give it a try doing things in your head for a day then review in the evening. Then you can see how close or how far off you are. You might be pleasantly surprised. It will take time to transition but you don't need to stop reviewing until you are comfortable. But you would be loosening the ties to constant tracking.

Each to their own, tracking works for many people. Buf you clearly want to move forward towards putting food in its place and get on with life having new priorities....It is possible, just takes confidence and being prepared to give it a try and risk not get it right first time. But it has worked for me.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Indigo1991

[M2G 1,836]

I definitely have a love/hate relationship with tracking my food. I use caloriecount.about.com and find it preferable to MFP in the way you can enter your food amounts.

However, I've had a long-standing argument with my surgeon about whether or not to track calories. I like to "know" my caloric intake and my surgeon hates it. He is very much in the camp of just "counting your Protein grams" and not looking at the calories. And my argument goes much like yours Misty that you put in your FOOD into a TRACKER and guess what it SHOWS you the calories. I suppose that I could just enter the food, and then jot down my Protein grams on a piece of paper or in a note on my phone, etc. and not actually LOG the food into a system that automatically gives you a calorie count. I'm NOT OCD but you are right that it does smack of OCD when you are logging every single bite of food that you ingest. I've actually sat at the dinner table with my little food scale and measured out everything before I eat it.

Now on the other end of the spectrum is my also-sleeeved-husband. He has ONLY tracked when I FORCED him to (he was probably about 4-6 months post op when I was like dude, that handful of mixed nuts you just ate was probably a good 250+ calories...maybe you need to weigh/measure/track) and so he did for a little and quickly lost interest. He has maintained his weight MUCH easier than I have, with little to no weighing/measuring/tracking. Sigh.

I'm much looser now with my tracking and it really came down to ME trusting ME. I didn't for a looooong time. I felt like if I didn't track then I wouldn't KNOW and I felt like tracking kept me honest and I needed that honesty with myself. For a while my brain did this "if I don't track my food, then I will gain weight" but in reality I have to give myself more credit than that. I also did some little tests of myself. I would "portion" out a bit of food and do a guess as to how much food it was. For example I buy greek yogurt in a huge tub. So I would spoon out a bit into a bowl and say to myself, that looks to be about 3oz of yogurt. And then I would weigh it. Whenever I would do this I was literally within grams of accuracy. So that exercised helped me to get over the fear that I didn't know what I was looking at.

Sorry this got long...I hope it helps you...

[lsereno 2,525]

As a vet with more than 2.5 years out, I can eat plenty enough calories to gain even while hitting my Protein goal. I cannot rely on getting enough Protein to keep me in my calorie range. For me, those are two separate tasks.

Calories: Say no to the cookie! Leave the doughnut there! Do not open hubby's can of mixed nuts! Use less mayonnaise!

Protein: eat two ounces of firm protein at Breakfast and lunch. Have a cup of Greek yogurt or two cups of soy milk every day. Eat three ounces of dense protein at dinner. Raving hunger? Eat protein, not carbs.

I, like GMAT, have spent years tracking and I tend to eat the same things, so most days I stick to a plan that I know is in my calorie range and protein guidelines. If I've been going off the rails, I often track with a whiteboard on the fridge or a little notebook when traveling. I count cups of Fluid and grams of protein. Quick and easy.

Lynda

[Fiddleman 4,376]

Yup - I think just tracking the basics in your head makes for a much easier time. Tracking is not for me. I found a set of simple rules that work and are easy to follow.

The way I have been managing since reaching goal 8 months ago is to start by eating 30-40 g of Protein a meal. Before goal, rules were a little different, but still did not track. After eating Protein, I try an eat 1-2 ounces of vegetables like red pepper or mini cucumbers if snack or lunch and broccoli if dinner meal. Protein for me has to be quick and easy to deal with as I do not have much prep Time. I like to eat chicken meatballs, herb chicken breasts or sliced chicken pieces, all pre cooked and ready to eat.

I take a good vita pak (animal pak) daily and supplement with Calcium chews, magnesium citrate (1 tbsp), Vitamin c crystals (4000 mg) and Vitamin D (5000 iu). I never have room for carbs that are not specifically planned, so never have a problem eating them as the rule (holiday time was an exception and I slip on the carbs now and then). I eat a meal every 3 hours starting at 6 am and ending at 9 pm.

I always eat my carbs for my first meal @ 6 am, a 2pm meal proceeding a workout @ 3:30 pm (sometimes 4 or 5 pm depending on when I get out of work) and post workout meal (either an AMRAP refuel bar (17 G protein, 22 g carb) or a scoop of ON Hydrobuilder shake ( 30 G protein and 8 g carb). The carb meals in morning and before working out will be a mix of 1/2 cup steel oats, scoop of Protein powder and 1/4 cup of Fiber Cereal. It is a ghoulish bowl of mush, but tastes fairly decent and provides slow burn energy for working out.

I use a 32 oz bottle and drink at least 1 every 2-3 hours. Typically, I go through about 8-9 refills a day. I always add flavor to make it super easy to drink. I will hydrate extra before and after working out everyday with bcaa powder added (xtend watermelon if you are interested).

I do not count calories nor do I pay attention to fat, but I do make an effort to eat low fat and to take 4 g fish oil 2x a day (good fat).

I Am in charge of all my meals except 7 pm dinner time. I eat what my wife prepares. This is always safe because she too is sleeved and she cooks sleeve friendly. My last meal is at 9 pm or so and is 60 g of casein shake. 3 scoops with Water. This night time casein is important to help the muscles repair over night and keep the metabolism burning until I eat Breakfast.

These are all easy rules or patterns that feel natural every day. And I do not ever write anything down because the rules are easy enough to follow every day. These rules have not failed me and I am not dealing with hunger. It is fairly easy to follow this plan second nature. It is good for people like me to follow a set of personalized rules rather than tracking (too tedious).

Edited January 4, 2014 by Fiddleman

[Fiddleman 4,376]

I also want to add my wife is the complete opposite. She loves to track. All the power to her! I will never track and know this about myself. Now here is the strange part. She is a more social person, loves people, loves being creative, hates numbers where I am the analytical, logical, numbers guy who would rather be writing code or solving math problems. I work in the finance industry writing software so deal with very detailed semantic analysis of numbers. Go figure how she became the tracker and I became the anti tracker. Lol. I guess it is these polar opposites that bring us together. We both support our different approaches to managing daily food consumptions.

[Fluffnomore 1,235]

Sorry guys. Hard to see the Vet designation when I'm using the laptop.

[gmanbat 5,889]

Sorry guys. Hard to see the Vet designation when I'm using the laptop.

You are absolved, Fluff, except now you will have to wait until you are 18 before you get your license.