What did you eat this past weekend? What did you eat yesterday? What did you eat this morning? If you answered each of those completely, then you are on it! For those of you who didn’t, I have something for you.
Many times we find ourselves working out regularly and eating “kind of” right, but the scale still seems to tip in the wrong direction. One solution that I have found to be eye opening and helpful is the process of food journaling. This helps with being accountable. This helps keep a tab on what you have eaten and how much of it you ate. One key to food journaling is to do it each time you put something in your mouth, whether it is one almond, a bottle of water, a piece of gum, etc. You will be surprised at the amount that you ate or didn’t eat during the course of a day. I am not saying to carry your journal with you everywhere you go throughout the office but whenever you do get a few cookies from Mary in the next cube or you taste Ricky’s homemade banana nut bread, be sure to journal that as soon as you can.
Did you know that the key to weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume? I know it sounds simple but that is where most of us go wrong. Sure, we only had one bagel with a little smear of cream cheese, but what we didn’t know was that accounted for almost 400 to 600 calories. This doesn’t include the orange juice or beverage of choice. Depending on how many calories you try to eat or not eat in a day, those calories are a significant portion of your intake. Believe me, I am not a fan of counting calories but when I do I really begin to see how important watching your calories can be. Every little calorie contributes to something. If you journal what you eat then at the end of the day or week you can go to Calorie King to tally up your total caloric intake. Calorie King allows you to search for a specific food and it gives you that item’s total calorie amount.
Weight loss is the result of 80% of what you eat and 20% of exercise. I have a suggestion. For one week try to journal your food and at the end of the week take a look at what you have written down. If you want to take it a step further, get a sewing measuring tape and measure your arms, thighs, midsection, etc at the beginning of the week and then retake your measurements at the end of the week to see if you have had any positive results. If it turns out that you didn’t have positive results, revisit your food journal and see where you went wrong.
Be accountable. Let’s get and stay fit!
Until Next Time
Indulgenceiskey
Good post. I could definitely see the benefits in that, especially for someone seeking to become more disciplined. I think it would be advantageous to also record the time that they are eating as well because over the long run you’ll be able to compare the change in your body as you stated but have more input to compare against. What I’m eating in relation to WHEN I'm eating it.
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