Is it normal for calorie counting to be exhausting after a while? How do you stay consistent without it taking over your life?

It really does get exhausting - there were weeks I’d dread mealtime because pulling out the scale and logging every gram felt like a second job. What helped me shift was realizing that consistency beats precision: eating similar meals on weekdays, pre-logging when I could, and giving myself permission to estimate once in a while without guilt. Studies show that even rough tracking (within 20–30% accuracy) still supports weight goals better than not tracking at all, so I stopped sweating the small stuff like a few extra grams of rice. These days I use caloria.tech when I’m too tired to think - snap a photo, get the breakdown, and move on with my day - and that five-second habit saved me from burning out because I wasn’t obsessing over every bite. I also built in one untracked meal a week just to breathe, and somehow my progress didn’t fall apart; it actually got easier because I stopped treating tracking like a test I could fail.

Yes, completely normal. Calorie counting takes mental energy, and it's common to feel burnout after a few weeks or months. The key is to find a balance - you don't have to track every single day forever. Many people switch to estimating or tracking only weekdays once they get a feel for portions.