Tracking your food in an app: Have you ever tried it?
Maybe you've meticulously logged every meal into your food tracking app, yet the results on the scale aren't matching your efforts...Frustrating, right?
I get it!
So many people have come to me with a history of food tracking exhausted from the effort and lack of progress...
So before you dive deeper into the world of calorie counting and macro tracking, let's explore why that approach might not be the golden ticket to weight loss success and how a different approach could transform your journey...
Five Key Reasons Why Food Tracking Isn't
Where I Begin With Clients
Difficulty in Estimating Portion Sizes
Unless you’re preparing every meal at home and using a food scale for every morsel, estimating portion sizes accurately without a well trained eye is challenging. You will almost always under report. This leads to inaccurate tracking, which defeats the purpose in the first place.
Forgetting to Log Everything
Life is busy and distractions are everywhere. It’s easy to miss logging every single thing you eat (which is what is required to be accurate). This will skew your data and make tracking less effective. If you are a mom, dad, professional, and have a lot going on, tracking accurately just adds more to your plate and can be a significant time commitment.
Unconscious Bias When logging food
Many people unintentionally underreport their intake. It’s not about dishonesty; it’s about the difficulty in accurately recalling what AND how much you’ve eaten. This is especially problematic when you try to log all of your food at the end of the day versus logging each thing as you eat it.
Variation in Food Database Accuracy
Not all tracking apps are created equal. Some, like MyFitnessPal are well known to have a lot of discrepancies and inaccurate nutritional information. Many allow user generated entries and are simply incorrect. While apps like Cronometer are much more accurate, discrepancies still exist, affecting overall accuracy.
The Time Commitment
Tracking every meal can be incredibly time-consuming especially as a beginner to the process. After 13 years of working with clients 1:1, I have learned that it's more fruitful to focus on making sustainable nutritional changes rather than aiming for perfect accuracy in tracking which can be an unattainable target for most people with a lot on their plate. 😉
The Proof is in the Pudding
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine examined 224 obese individuals who claimed they couldn’t lose weight despite eating under 1200 calories a day. The study revealed that participants underreported their food intake by 47% and over reported physical activity by 51%.
This highlights the common struggle of accurately assessing our own habits. I have found time and time again that with the effort that's required to accurately track, we can put that effort in another direction and see outstanding progress without the added stress. This is also a great reason to invest in external accountability. I help my clients zoom out and make sure their efforts are being directed in a way that's going to help them see the results they're after with the least disruption to their lifestyle and time.
Win-win-win!!
There are situations where food tracking can be helpful for a short time, but it's rarely the best starting point, especially for beginners. Instead, let's focus on understanding and improving your nutrition habits in simpler, more sustainable ways. Who needs complicated when you can have effective? Focusing on building positive momentum and making lasting changes is the key to long-term wellness. And that, to me, sounds so much better. ❤️
Ready to ditch the diets and create a healthy lifestyle that actually fits you? Schedule your FREE Discovery Call today—I can't wait to chat! In just 30 minutes, we'll discuss your goals and explore how I can help you achieve them. Spots are limited for personalized coaching, so don't wait! Learn more about my 1:1 coaching program here.
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