For determined dieters, tracking every sip and morsel is a way of life. Now, there’s some good news: You don’t have to be perfect with food tracking to lose weight.

University of Connecticut researchers recently answered vital questions that vex some dieters: Do they have to reach for their food-tracking apps all the time? If so, what’s the optimal balance of food tracking for weight loss?

To determine that, about 150 study participants were asked to report their eating habits while using a commercial weight-loss app. The idea was to find the best diet-tracking thresholds to predict weight losses of 3%, 5% or 10% after six months.

The app used by study participants also included a list of so-called “zero-point foods,” eliminating a need for those items to be recorded in the app. That made food tracking less burdensome but still productive for weight loss.

Indeed, they found some sweet spots: Dieters only needed to track food about 30% of the days during the study to lose about 3% of their weight. Shedding 5% of their starting weight required food tracking on about 40% of the days during the study. To hit a 10% weight loss, food tracking needed to happen about 70% of the time.

While food vigilance pays dividends, there’s also a bit of a sliding scale. So-called “super users” who tracked their eating almost every day lost about 10% of their body weight in six months. But many participants belonged to a second group who regularly tracked their eating but eventually fell back to doing so about one day a week after four months. Even so, they shed about 5% of their weight.

When it comes to tracking every bite of food, it’s OK to be less than perfect.