Food Diaries

In my last entry, I mentioned something about food diaries. Keeping a record of everything I eat is something that I've attempted to do in the past but never quite got the hang of doing consistently. For one thing, it was easy to write in the food diary on days that I was eating healthy. I could painlessly record my fruit and cottage cheese, salad and tuna, and salmon and broccoli days. It was usually around the 5 pieces of pizza days that I gave up.



Jacqueline D. Stanley writes about the top ten benefits of recording what you eat in a food diary on WeightLossMoms.com:

1. Allows you to monitor your caloric intake. – Losing weight is a simple
equation – take in fewer calories than you expend. Monitoring your caloric
intake is the first step in lowering it.
2. Encourages you to focus on your
food choices. – More often than not we overeat because we are focusing on
something other than what we are eating. Writing down what you eat in a food
diary forces you to focus on what you are doing.
3. Provides a record you can
share with your health care provider. -- Your health care provider can look at
your food diary and provide insight and information on what you can do to eat
healthier. Also, what you are eating may be impacting your health in other
ways.
4. Helps you control the urge to binge. – Knowing you are going to have
to write down what you eat can stop you from reaching for the second helping of
potato chips.
5. Allows you to track your progress. – A food diary can serve
as evidence of how far you have come in this journey. It also feels great to
look back and see you are eating better today than you did days, weeks or years
ago.
6. Encourages mindful eating. – Writing down what you eat encourages you
to think about what you are eating. The more you think, the less and better you
eat.
7. Creates a means of evaluating the connection between what you eat and
how you feel. – You can use a food diary to examine the circumstances and
feelings which trigger overeating. Once you identify the causes you can begin
doing something about them.
8. Helps you be sure you are getting enough of
each food group. -- It is important to eat a balanced diet. A food diary can
provide clues as to what foods you have been neglecting and need to add to your
diet.
9. Assists you in acknowledging the reality of how much you eat. –
Keeping a food diary will help you confront the truth about how much you eat.
Once you stop kidding yourself about how much you eat, you can begin making the
necessary changes.
10. Reinforces your commitment to achieving and
maintaining a healthy weight. – Each time you make an entry in your food diary
you are expressing your intention and desire to do what needs to be done in
order to live well.

Needless to say, I feel the need to give keeping a food diary another try. As some added inspiration, I spent $15 on a fancy workout journal where I record my daily meals, snacks, AND workouts. In addition, it also features a progress chart where you track your weight and also body measurements, blood pressure, fitness level, etc. Below is a picture of the workout journal that I purchased. The title is really lame, but it's very thorough, and even includes little "I did it!" stickers for days when you eat healthy and exercise. Still lame, but oh well.