Food tracking - useful or OCD

Jeff,

I weigh and measure everything unless I have a day where I eat out at an "all you can eat" style place or just go totally off the rails for the day (logged on MyFitnessPal as LurkingFrog). Personally, I find it help me with compliance and gives me data points for later if I need to look for patterns, but I know it drives a lot of people nuts trying to do it. 

I figure macros are likely coming soon to a step near me, so I was wondering if it was worth maintaining the habit since I've already integrated it into my cooking or if I should back off as overkill and just enjoy my eating.

Thanks,
Dave


Nope, I'm not OCD at all

How is it working for you? Do you think you could keep this up without burning yourself out for a year? How bout' 2? 

I'm doing well with it and have for the last 6 months almost continuously. The only times I haven't is when my diet goes off the rails for a period of time and not tracking is the least of my problems. It forces me to think about what and how much I'm eating in advance rather than shoveling it in; my body signals "full" poorly and I can over-eat with the best of them if allowed free range. I've also completely integrated it into my kitchen routine, so as long as I'm cooking my own food it really doesn't add time or effort. I'm a big fan of the quote "what is measured is managed" and in my case that seems to be the only way to find out why I've put on so much weight over a short period of time after being stable for several years.

To answer your question, yes I could maintain it with little effort. I'd prefer not to but I figure it is a useful tool to have while figuring out what works for me.

Well then yes its OCD and useful. If its working for you stick with it. I think you of all people will be really excited for step 10 and beyond. 

Definitely looking forward to it. My food quality has been solid for years, but quantities and timing seem to be way off. They always say "you cannot out-exercise a bad diet" but it's far less mentioned that one can out-eat a good one as well.