Tracking nutrition and getting real with yourself

I'm going to try using My Fitness Pal again, to track nutrition. Mat has issued a challenge to his clients to track consistently for 3 months, with free sessions up for grabs for those who keep up with their goals (genius strategy, on his part). I've been on MFP before, and for a lot of reasons didn't love it. So, I created my own paper version that I'd print out each week, and that worked for awhile, until I stopped tracking at all. I am not someone who can half-heartedly track. If I'm gonna do it, it's gonna be in complete detail.

Which can make you a little crazy.
Or a lot crazy. Depends who you ask. (And who has to read it).

And then I stopped tracking at all. It just got obsessive. I felt like I had to write down every thing that went into my mouth. Certainly, it made me aware of amounts, and what I was eating, which was good. That's what most people have the hardest time with. And staying at or close to goals was easier, for both me and Mat. But it was too much. It was around January-February when I hit a wall that I stopped writing things down, and even when I got myself out of that slump, I didn't get back into the tracking habit.

My hope was to be able to guesstimate calories and amounts, to learn to eat cleanly and make more good choices than bad ones, on a regular basis. To me, that's the definition of "balance" which is what I strive for. The problem is that it's so easy to overestimate how much exercise you do, and way underestimate what you eat. Have one cookie, or a chocolate bar, and your mind magically erases it. You can get to the end of the day, having actually eaten a fair bit through snacking, and somehow convince yourself you're starving because you haven't eaten three square meals. Tracking is essential. So is learning calorie amounts.

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My math is admittedly bad. I'm not a numbers girl. So, even when I can tell you how many calories, or how much fat, carbs, and protein are in the most common items I eat, I still can't keep an accurate mental tally of what I've had over the whole day.

On this, I am not alone. A great article called "the most important thing you can do to lose weight and keep it off" breaks down just how badly we (the general population "we") are at paying attention to those numbers. We collectively suck at accurately
estimating our nutritional intake.

In other words, the most important thing we can do is get brutally honest with ourselves about what we eat, and how much. For me, that means a return to tracking.

"Human energetics professor Klaas Westerterp reported in the 2000 edition of Physical Activity and Obesity that obese people were not only more prone to underestimate caloric intake, but they also were more likely to overestimate their physical activity. Multiple studies have shown that, in obesity, there is a consistent problem with believing you are consuming fewer calories than you actually are, as well as thinking that you’re moving more than is reflected in reality. Why does this happen? We forget about snacks and drinks, and sometimes
believe that if something is healthy, the calories don’t count. In other words, we’re not being honest with ourselves about how many calories we’re consuming.
What’s more, we not being truthful about the number of calories we burn via physical activity."

And if there's a chance at free training sessions, you bet your patootie I'll be doing it through My Fitness Pal. I'll
overlook the fact that it makes it easier for Mat to check what I'm eating than my giant binder with photos that I'd bring him each month. Prizes! Free stuff! I'm in.

And, hopefully, I will also soon be back on track.