One of the best things you can do to help reach your weight loss goals is to keep a food journal. A food journal will keep you focused on your diet and hold you accountable to your goals. It will also shed light on the reality of what you eat during the day and late at night. You may not realize how often you eat a bag of chips at midnight or how many cans of soda you drink on a daily basis. Keeping a well detailed food journal can also reveal under what circumstances you eat so you know what where your pitfalls lie. While this may seem like a step you would rather ignore, many diet experts feel it is worth the effort you put into it. In fact, it may be useful to keep a food journal a few days before beginning your diet to have a better idea of your habits.
What should you include in your food journal?
-Everything you and drink for that day.
-Exact proportions of what you eat and drink.
-Time of day you ate.
-Your mood at the time you eat.
Once you determine that your issue is portion control, poor food choices, or emotional eating, be sure to focus your notes in these areas to target your weaknesses. You will need to make your journal specific to you to gain the most benefit from this exercise.
Food Journal Rules:
-Be honest! We all have a tendency to even lie to ourselves; however, this will only hamper your goals. If you go off track and eat a piece of cheesecake at 2am, then record it. This journal can only benefit you and aid in accomplishing your goals if you are brutally honest. Do not record you had ½ a cup of ice cream if you ate 2 cups.
-Record what you eat as you eat it. This is a vital step in maintaining your food journal. If you wait until the end of the day your recall will not be as sharp. Also, keeping your food journal with you and recording with every bite that goes in your mouth will help keep you accountable. You will find that you will turn down the cream filled donut simply because you hate to mar your journal with such a sin.
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