Keeping a Food Diary
Keeping a food diary can be a very useful tool to help you make lifestyle changes which will lead to long term weight loss. By writing down everything you eat and drink you’re able to spot negative eating or lifestyle patterns that often go unnoticed.
Perhaps you don’t realise how much you eat at lunch or how often you succumb to quick fixes during the afternoon. You might even be eating far less than you think and need to add in an extra snack mid-morning to stave off hunger, helping to keep blood sugar stable.
A diary will raise your awareness of what you’re actually doing and where your strengths and weaknesses lie. You can then easily identify where your priorities are and which change(s) you need to make.
Monitoring Weight loss
Start off with a blank piece of paper with two columns. On the left you record the time and next to it the list of everything you have had to eat or drink. And this means everything! If you leave out those couple of biscuits and can of cola you are only cheating yourself.
The food diary is for your eyes only; no one will be passing judgements on what you eat – except you! The more accurate your diary is, the more rewarding it will be when you come to look back at it and compare how far you’ve come.
You may like to add extra columns to your diary to record where you were at the time of eating or drinking and any thoughts you had. For example, were you at your desk, ‘on the go’ our in front of the TV? Were you tired, bored or stressed?
Reviewing you diary can help you identify the situations or feelings that trigger unplanned or unhealthy eating.
Weight loss and the Nutrition Card
Studies have shown that keeping track of what you eat and drink is key to losing weight and keeping it off in the long term. But keeping a written diary every day can be a challenge. You may not have a pocket to keep the notebook in or maybe there is no pen to hand just when you need it, while some people find it embarrassing to pull out a diary in social situations.
This is where [GetFit Nutrition] can help. The unique Nutrition Card™ system is a new handy type of food diary.