Dont write down calories but I measure food... oops?

I wasnt ever told to write down calories, but I do measure food to make sure I am eating correctly... I see quite a bit of people write down caloric intake.  Should I be writing it down?

What do you all think?

not at this point.  Once you start eating more... and  - or are on maintance... you may start. for no w- as long as you measure food, and make sure you get enough proteins and water - I would not worry about the calories

Repsectfully, I disagree.  Once I started on full solids, I tracked both protein and calories.  It is how you educate yourself about how much you are eating and regulate that quantity to meet your nutrional needs.  You don't want to be undershooting or overshooting your caloric intake or your protein.  Periodically, you will have to adjust your intake, but that is hard to do if you don't know, specifically, what you have been consuming.  You can keep a journal or if you are tech savvy, there are online programs and apps that help you do that easily.

 I was told to measure everything and track calories one week a month.

It is worth it, IMO.  To realize that putting nuts in my oatmeal adds a lot of calories or whatever.

I was never told to track calories.  I was told to track protein intake and to eat the proper portions.  I did track my food once I was about a month out... I did that for several months, mostly to be sure I was getting enough protein. Occasionally I would look at the calories. The only times I tracked calores was between 6 and 9 months (because my weight loss rate had slowed so much after 6 months out that I wanted the reassurance that my intake was about right), and then after I reached goal and my weight stabilized I wanted to know roughly what caloric intake I needed to maintain my weight.

One of the potential reasons NOT to track calories and to focus instead on food choices and portions is that tracking calories is what people do when they DIET (and we all know how successful that is)... whereas portion control and healthy food choices is what people do when they completely change their way of eating. (There was no chance in hell that I was going to take the time to track daily calories for the rest of my life!)

Yes, you need to have SOME kind of caloric guideline but I don't think it is necessary (and neither does my surgeon, apparently!) to have a rigid "eat 500-calories-for-3-weeks, then eat-600-calories-for-6-weeks, then eat-800-calories-for-8 weeks" structure.   Not consistently tracking calories might not work for everyone, but it worked for me and seems to work for most of my surgeon's patients.

Lora

I was never told to track calories, but rather that I should strive for 100 grams of protein a day... I did add an online tracker of food and calories after I was about 6 months out, and I was amazed to learn a bit about how many calories were or were not in certain things I was eating! I think it's awesome to track them if you can manage to not stress about them!! :D

Huggles!!
~Sarah~