This is 'Some' Of What I Ate

Does it make a big difference if you don't tick the box?

@Mark13 -- Based on your "Several Points" comment above, I went to take a look at my sodium levels for last month. I eat a lot of takeout, but I also cook from scratch with little added salt, so I really expected my sodium levels to be pretty good. I am shocked to learn that my sodium levels are quite high.

Checking those PDF reports was a good tip.

Sodium was a big factor for me too. One day I was low in carbs and gained a whopping 5 lbs the next moment. I added in my sodium count and had nearly 7000mg of sodium for that day. This was an eye opening moment where I found what was a big facotr in making me gain and lose weight. Now on low carb AND sodium days, I wake up the next morning lighter on the scale and leaner in the mirror. All thanks to the nutrient tracking on the food diary

This is not available through FatSecretUK...

However if you login through fatsecret.com with your fatsecret.co.uk username and password they ARE there!!!

(or just change .co.uk to .com in the URL)

Personally I have never been successful at losing weight unless I was using a food diary of some kind. In the "old days" I had a notebook and a huge paperback with calorie lists. It was like a thousand pages! You really had to be dedicated to weight loss to slog through those pages several times a day. Compared to that, using the enormous database here on FS is a piece of cake! (sorry dieters) First thing every day I try to click on the exactly button. In some weird way it keeps me more accountable. Not writing it down doesn't mean I didn't eat it. Who am I fooling really? If I gain weight and don't know what happened, I can look for clues in my calendar. If I left something off and forgot that I ate it, how will I know not to make that mistake again if I don't record it? If I see someone ate two hot fudge sundaes, I'm not going to say "Oooooh, what a cheater". If people don't want others to see what they eat, they have the option to make it private. It's the people who eat too little that concern me, not the ones who eat too much now and then. I sincerely hope those 300-500 calorie a day people are eating more than that or they could get sick.

I track everything, except...
I do it by phone, iPad and computer, whatever is most convenient, so I don't always change the button to 100%. Sue me. (-:
I love eating unusual, ethnic and mixed foods (think: restaurant salad with 15 different veggies). Who wants to enter every one? I do my best but don't stress out about a tablespoon of green onions that I. forgot to log. A tablespoon of butter, on the other hand, always gets recorded.

Also, who even knows every ingredient in Chicken Korma from my favorie non-chain Indian restaurant? So here I guess: I just pick a middle-value Chicken Korma from the FS database, and do my best on portion size guessing too. I am not going to carry a portable scale to restaurants.

But this is what i have learned from this process:
As Nimm has helpfully pointed out, most people underestimate calories consumed by 25%, so when I think I am eating 1200kcal, it might actually be more like 1500.
My thighs don't lie. They are my most accurate food journal.
My extended trends are most helpful in seeing a disconnect on reporting. Generally, I need a 45,000 kcal deficit to lose 10 lbs, meaning I am off by about 30% between calorie counts and FS exercise values, but I can compensate for that by adjusting my target RDI down for a larger net calorie deficit daily (from an 1800 target to a 1500 target).

Bottom line for me is that tracking is essential to teaching me the calorie costs of foods and how my body responds to certain levels of food and exercise. My faithful and accurate records give the best feedback!!
Good, thoughtful question!

The days where I've had a meal like that I do much the same (Though I tend to go for the highest rather than a middle value)!
They are also the days where I leave the "This is some of what I ate" as is when I finally remember to go-back through and change them. So-far only the two of them.





I can imagine people that dedicated... I'm not one either

For me, if I'm going to make this FS thing work for me, it's absolutely necessary for me to use the tools provided here. As for tracking diet/calories? I know at the end of the day that I have recorded each and every spoonful of food that's gone into my mouth. It helps me keep a "realistic" journal of everything that I consume in a day and keeps me accountable for everything. I DO know - and can eye - a proper portion size (and weighing/measuring food has helped teach me this over time), but I find that after a while I tend to begin slightly increasing portion size until I catch myself. And yes, that is "each and every teaspoon, tablespoon, ounce, and cup of food". This way at the end of the day when my RDI tally's read "1300 calories" for that day - I know I actually ONLY HAD 1300 CALORIES. I think everyone should take full advantage of the tools offered. I think MOST would be surprised about how many cals they are actually consuming in a day if they account for every single item. This would also help to answer many questions for some, as to why the weight does not seem to be coming off. I am definitely for the "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I ATE" button otherwise what's the point? Just be accountable for yourself, isn't this why you keep showing up to FS everyday in the first place?

I log everything but sometimes I just leave it to "some" because I honestly don't know if that was, say, 1 oz or 2 of cheese if I didn't prepare it myself. Or even what kind of cheese...you get the idea.

I don't log every little bite that goes into my mouth, because I'm what I call a "grazer". I do this with full knowledge and awareness that my caloric intake is actually higher than it appears. I DO weigh and measure and record exact amounts of many larger portions, however...Seems to be working out ok for me...but, to each his own. If being exact works, do it...but speaking strictly for myself, I'm not going to stress over not recording a single bite of tuna or ONE potato chip.

Some of us do it because we are new and failed to notice the feature, which I glad you made an issue. Whatever I eat, I log into my food diary. I am a recovering grazer and logging in every bite puts the grazing to a halt for me.

except for when I went on a trip recently I log everything but It is too much of a pain to change the default everytime especially since I can't from my phone which is how I do 99% of my logging.

As much as I agree that the Diet Calendar is an amazing tool and I wish more people used it consistently, I can't believe that you think the community help is a 'distant' 2nd!! I had the ability to track my calories/exercise in the app on my phone for a good 1.5 years before I realized that it linked to this website, and I NEVER used it consistently before I synced to this site and found some awesome buddies. It made me accountable to more than just myself, which is exactly what I needed. Yes, ideally you do this only for yourself and you shouldn't need anyone else to hold you accountable, but sometimes we just need it. And there were times where I'd think "Well, I just won't log this snack" or "Well, I'll just log a 3 mile run even if I don't go, just because I said I'd go" - but I would feel so guilty that I wouldn't eat the snack and I would go for the dang run!

Anyway.. a little off topic.. The thing that frustrates me more than seeing the silly "this is some of what I ate" is seeing journal entries with "I think I'm doing so good with my food intake, I don't know why I'm gaining weight!!!" and then looking at their sporadic/partially filled out diet calendar...

Not to be sexist, erika, but maybe it's a guy thing for Mark. Of course, he's an IT guy, so maybe it's a computer guy thing

yah it's just the default thingy...

I can do it from a computer but not from my phone. I don't really get the point of that option. I really track every bite I eat, when I use the app. Otherwise I see no point in using the food diary...

Mark13 i understand what you are saying but everyone is different that's all i am saying ie some may be embarrassed to share with the world what they eat but still want the support of the site and keep their intake private... I am not one of those lol

Again. No disrespect mark but you raised the point of this subject but you have hidden what you eat, surely you should be blazing the trail by example?

Hey I'm a techie guy and I like the forums, journals and community encouragement... But I would still rate it as the distant 2nd as well.

IF it was available within the app as well then I would rate it higher, but as it's not...

Hi, it could also be that folk just forget to click from "some of what I ate" for a number of reasons, hence they plan to come back later & record a snack or the American planner doesn't recognise foods from other countries.

Unless there is some sort of conspiracy going on?