Why I Will Never Write Down What I Eat
Why won’t I write down what I eat? Simple: I want to live a normal life. I don’t want to be one of those folks that’s writing down every single thing they consume and writing down every single thing they do. No sir. I refuse to. It may work for some folks, but it won’t work with me. It would just make me dread every aspect of getting in shape even more. I don’t want to add negativity to my life, which is what writing everything down would do.
I do refer to what I eat though. I know how many calories I have consumed and what kind of calories I have consumed. I look at labels and have a general idea of the caloric and nutritional breakdowns of certain foods. When I don’t know something I Google it. I plan in advance in a different way than writing things down. I know exactly what I will eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t prepare any of it in advance or write it down, but I do know what I plan on consuming (except for the few relapses I have been having lately). It’s all in my head.
So I was perusing through my comments yesterday when I came across a comment by James. James is always commenting and giving me advice, which I love. I like the interaction with readers. Especially since I do the same thing on other blogs. Anyway, he recently made a comment that “challenged” me. It sort of pissed me off, but I welcome it nonetheless. Thinking back, it’s not that big a deal. I was just in a bad mood when I read it.
So here is his James’ comment about me (I edited the grammatical errors):
“Why won’t you ever refer to what you eat? You don’t write down what you eat, but do you know the proportions of nutriments you’re getting in? Can you say what percentage of protein, carbs and fat are you getting? I don’t see why you have a fixation on never writing down what you eat or plan in advance, if you could explain it in a new post it would be cool. Nevertheless my recommendation works as well for workouts, but are you going to tell me that you never plan in advance your workouts and never will? How open minded is that?”
With regards to your comment about not being open minded, what’s that about bro? Was that even necessary? Saying that made me want to break something. Your face! I feel like it was uncalled for man. I do plan my workouts in advance, I even printed out a workout plan and posted it in my gym.
So James, thanks for the thought provoking comment, keep them coming. No hard feelings, nothing personal. I just won’t ever write down what I eat. NEVER!
on 
on 
on 
As you said, it was no big deal, I’m french and not very good in english, hense the bad grammar. As for the open minded comment it was just to make you react, but honestly I didn’t know that you had already planned out your workouts. At the beginning it was a suggestion (planning your eating, not exactly what, but at least in terms of nutriments intakes) to overcome your recent overeating. If you did plan a whole week ahead, by the time you finish your plan and go back to a more relaxed way of eating, you’d have washed off the overeating spree.
I’m English and not very good in english. lol.
I can plan my week’s worth of food until I’m blue in the face, write it down in my online tracker and in a food journal as well, doesn’t mean I WON’T deviate from the plan if I WANT to.
Willpower will overcome paper if it’s strong enough. Sure, structure is great and all, but it’s not the be all and end all. If someone wants to cheat, they will. If someone wants to succeed, they will as well.
Israel will. He has a plan, let him work it.
Thanks mousearoo, you said it perfectly.
I was giving my advice, it would be strange that I’d be criticized for trying!
You advice is always welcome, same goes for your criticism.
For myself, writing down what I’ve eaten helps to keep me focused and allows me to go back and compare my weigh in results with what I ate that week. The ability to do that comes in handy if the scale gives me a number that I’m not expecting.
But that’s what works for me. If you don’t want to ever write anything down, that’s great as long as it’s working for you, and it certainly seems to be!
Yep, it does work for me. Like I said above, it may work for some, but for me it’s not the way to go.
I initially thought that this thread should be called “Why I Will Never Lose Weight.” But I am starting to see your point.
Planning meals can be good for beginning dieters. This takes out the guess work when you are getting hungry. Your brain makes your decisions for you not your stomach.
Tracking meals can help you see where you can improve. If you are not progressing as you feel you should, you should evaluate your diet and writing it down is probably the best way to do so.
Most healthy people probably do not write down their diets, they just eat healthy and excercise. But to each his own. Different people do things differently. If you can manage things in your head and are good with yourself, then all is good and I agree with your post. Continued good luck.
Thanks Hustler, cool site ya got there btw.
Initially I made this proposition (of planning vaguely one week of nutrition) in order to overcome a period of binge Israel was having and struggling with on his blog. Of course it’s not very funny to do afterwards, like writing down what you eat after you eat it, but planning a week worth of food intake (and workouts) can come handy to remove the decision process out of the way for periods like these where several days worth of work are lost.
I’m also a beginner dieter, all I have as experience is having completed one mission of Metabolic Surge program level 1 and starting the normal program yesterday. It was just a common sense advice in order to overcome a specific need of Israel.
And for that James I thank you.
Yeah, like right now, I am getting hungry, and the longer I wait, the more I will want to eat and the worse the food will be. If I had it planned out I would be straight and just eat what was on the list, not what my stomach said.