Food Tracking

(Crippie) #1

After catching up on the keto dudes podcast and reading on my own, I now realize how much garbage the Calories In Calories Out method of thinking is.

Since starting Keto I have always tracked my food religiously. In the beginning I needed to in order to make sure I was under my carb limit. But over the past month or so I have not even worried about my carb levels, I know what to eat and looking back I haven’t even hit 15g carbs in a day, and I haven’t even been checking carbs. But I still track my food. And really it has gotten to the point where I use it to see if I can get my calories as low as possible without feeling like I am hungry. Now I am feeling like even though my weight is dropping that this may be a bad habit as I am probably lowering my metabolic rate and possibly slowing my weight loss.

I have mostly stopped letting the numbers on the tracker decide if and when I can eat, and just try to let my body tell me when its hungry and what for, so it hasn’t really affected my eating much. I also decided to try the feast/fast method to switch it up a little, basically plan to throw a feast/fast in once or twice a month and do IF the rest of the time. But tracking those feast days makes me feel horrible, I recently posted asking about feast guilt and after writing up this post I think it may be related to tracking my food and seeing the calorie number go over its normal “goal” amount and get into those red numbers, and I hate that guilty feeling.

So this has led me to want to just stop tracking my food. But this brings up an internal conflict for me… Mainly because food tracking has always been sort of a mental signal for me that “you are on a diet”. Now after having been keto this is basically how I want to eat the rest of my life, so I don’t really want to consider this a diet anymore and just how I eat now, so stopping the tracking and this mental signal makes sense to me. BUT on the other hand I still want to keep losing weight and improving my health, so I get a little bit of anxiety to basically turn that switch off, worrying that if I stop tracking the weight may come back, for any multitude of reasons. As I mentioned it has not really affected my eating for over a month now, even on days with high calories if I am really truly hungry I’d still eat, but I guess mentally it is still something there I could fall back on if times get hard.

Any thoughts? Should I ditch the tracker and trust in my body to keep me honest? I guess it comes back to that my entire life I feel like I have not been able to trust my bodies signals and I am scared to now. It has not led me astray since becoming fat adapted, but that has not been all that long.

I have debated for the past 15 minutes weather to even post this or not. Writing it out I keep thinking I made a decision, but then rereading it I flip flop again. So I figured if I really can;t decide that maybe others have had similar experiences and they can shed some light. I know its ultimately a personal thing and I need to decide for myself, but I figured it may make for some interesting conversation at least.

(Liz ) #2

I can totally relate to all of this! I continue to track though the days I “go over” on calories makes me anxious even though I know it’s foolish. I too like to feast before fasting even if it feels off, because I really do believe the science.

And I hear you on having not been able to trust our signals in the past, it will take me probably years to believe what my body is telling me. It used to give me such terrible advice lol! Ugh. Sugar is a menace.

It all comes down to not totally trusting my signals, not entirely believing that this time my plan will work even though this time it’s based on science. I think we just need time, and to be easy on ourselves even when we know we’re overreacting. Eventually I hope we can see it’s working without micromanaging.

(Crippie) #3

Thank you! I feel the same way, ultimately I just don;t trust myself enough, hopefully with more time I will and can phase it out. For now I think i will continue to track. Maybe I will take a break or something and see how it goes just to test the waters a little.

(Liz ) #4

Yeah just do what ever you need to get through, you know? I imagine we will relax a bit as the years go by.

(Mark Rhodes) #5

Thumbs up to both as I too track. I track now to be able to look over things if I hit a stall and not to get higher ketones or make sure I am under a limit. One thing this last month showed was one of two things: smaller meals which resulted in more snacking ( keto). Second was more desserts along with our meals. I looked back over my data because I felt I was stalling and saw corresponding dips in ketones, increases in glucose along with my snacks. Rather than grab the next big idea in the world of keto I went back to my successful formula. First I fasted, ate a couple days, fasted then went into a IF schedule. The information is valuable if you use it. Of course I now guess at weights and portions rather than weigh everything…BBBHUT should I encounter a problem in the future I may go back to that as well.

great topic!

(VLC.MD) #6

How are people tracking ? MyFitnessPal ?

I can’t get myself to use it.
I think tracking has many benefits … definitely keep tracking if you are doing well.

How do you track ketones ?

(Crippie) #7

That is what I use. Scan most bar codes to get it in, use a food scale and such to get measurements correct. it also has gotten easy over time as it saves what you have tracked before and shows that at the top. You can also “create a recipe” which I do for almost every meal we cook, then you add the recipe and how many servings and it allocates it, which makes it super easy to go back to it if you ever recook, like I do with fathead pizza!

That said it still takes time and effort, to weigh out servings, and when trying a new recipe to add all the ingredients into it.

(VLC.MD) #8

Isn’t there a function where you can download a new recipe straight to MFP ? I never see Keto blogs with MFP downloads mind you.

(Crippie) #9

Yes! you can “import recipe from web” and it is within MFP not anything any site does, its a recipe parser, so it works with virtually any recipe webpage, at least I have not had any that it didn’t work.

it speeds it up a lot, but it isn;t perfect, sometimes it wont match on an ingredient, or itll match to something with a screwed up serving size and throw your numbers off(one annoying example is a tsp of garlic powder, it matches to a buggy serving size that puts like 600+ calories per teaspoon or something) you also may need to go in and search for the correct brands and such.

But it is a handy tool!

(Liz ) #10

Yes I also use My Fitness Pal, I know it can be inaccurate but it’s close enough for what I need. I’ll often put food in I intend to eat for the day & see if I’m getting enough fat/protein so I can adjust before I eat. Metrics make me feel more informed & more in control so I will keep at it.

(MooBoom) #11

I relate to the anxiety about tracking and calorie restriction, or at least I did until recently. I got suuuuuper hungry one day and ate double my normal intake. Seeing the calories go into the red worried me no end, but I trusted my body knew what it was doing. Next day, 1kg down!

Now, every time I have one of those days and eat stacks I can expect a big loss on the scales soon after. And it’s all staying off.

Since then, I get excited when I see calories go into the red, because I know good things are coming. My brain has been re-programmed by the positive outcomes.

Give it a go- trust your body, it might surprise you.

(Liz ) #12

Thanks for sharing your experience! Would love that to happen to me too :blush:

(Jennifer) #13

I don’t track anything besides keeping a daily mental count on carbs. I go by how my body feels. Tracking macros is stressful to me and I tend to get obsessive about stuff like that so I just don’t do it and it works for me.

Keto is the way I was meant to eat, and fasting is how I was meant to lose weight. How do I know this? I have been keto since this past February and lost 60 pounds in 6 months. Now, I did a lot of fasting and that is what made me loose. These last two months, I’ve had a lot of stuff on my plate and I have been pretty stressed. Since I am a stress eater I ate keto like a pig and didn’t fast because I just couldn’t mentally or physically do it. How much weight did I gain? Not a pound. Crazy…

Would this work for everyone? I have no idea. But you might want to try trusting what your body is telling you and see what happens. :slight_smile:

KCKO

(MooBoom) #14

I should add the days I ‘overeat’ (I need a better word…) I never exceed my protein or carb macros- only fat. I’m talking cheese, pate, avocado, BPC’s, double cream, coconut oil, macadamias, olive oil, olives…

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(VLC.MD) #15

I need some stress treats full of fat.
Or else I might do something stupid.

Especially at night. When I tend to eat too much.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #16

I find that even something as simple as adding heavy cream to my coffee can be quite satisfying. I also snack on high-fat nuts (pecans and almonds, primarily) and full-fat yoghurt. My favorite brand of yoghurt even has a double cream version, which is yummy, but I’ve seen it in the supermarket only once—I think someone ordered it by mistake, lol! (May have to request it.) Interestingly, when I was eating carbs and accidentally bought the plain-flavored full-fat yoghurt, it was far too bitter to be tolerable; now, it tastes delicious and even rather sweet. I bought the French vanilla version by mistake recently, and it’s far too sweet, now!

(Carpe salata!) #17

So true! That super bitter ~95% chocolate used to be inedible. Now it’s yummy and satisfying with an occasional 1or 2 pieces.

(Mark Rhodes) #18

I have two BHB monitors, the Freestyle Optimum & the new Keto-Mojo and a Ketonix. With the Mojo I started once a day again, unless testing for a particular response as it is only $.99 a test. The ketonix I use as a general guide, especially when we take trips away from home. I can test to see where on the spectrum I am in reference to where I usually average. If my results are not what I expect then I go and test blood, both BHB & BS just to be assured.

I am in my 10th month but only 7 months in keto as defined here. My average has been about .7mmol. Recently it dipped to an average of .4mmol. At first I thought it was that I was becoming more efficient and although I have not ruled out that I don’t have as many excess ketones in my blood stream, as I said, reviewing my evidence I saw something far more prominent in my eating. So I fasted since Sunday. Yesterday I tested 5.2mmol, 89PPM & 69 BS. Before bed after a very physically demanding day at work and a leg strength day, I broke my fast early with a spoon of butter. This morning I had heavy cream in my coffee and that will be it until noon with smoked brisket. Because I was answering this I thought I would test again. 4.9mmol & 81 BS.

As to my food log I use mynetdiary. It is geared towards diabetics and under the tracker section I can add my own trackers such as BHB, PPM, Fat to Carb/Protein KCAL ratio etc. I can add recipes etc. I track my fitness using excel as my strength training is more about time under load as opposed to tonnage moved.

(Crippie) #19

I think I might. I am going to start a fast this evening after I finish a phase of feasting. Might track a few days after just to make sure I am back on the right track after not eating for 3 days. But then stop after a bit and just take a week or two break and see how it goes.

:slight_smile: Thanks!

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #20

I use MFP, I put keto/lchf recipes in MFP in addition to scanning the labels. I also use MasterCook and can download recipes from the web, so I can get all kinds of useful info.

I was religious in tracking until I started keto and doing some IFing. MFP balks if you are under 1000 cals. which you are often on IF or extended fasts, so my diary has some good data and some blank days as well. I go back and forth with the logging. In the end calories play a role, but I am still in love with how the fats just take care of any overeating I might have done in the past.