The Food Journal

Dieting - EEEEEW!

There comes a time in every person's life when he or she must become accountable for one thing or another. Because my efforts to fit into my skinny jeans (no, not the nasty emo jank the punks wear; I refer to the jeans I could fit into when I was skinny) have heretofore been unsuccessful, I became determined to become more aware of what I was feeding myself. In the simplistic metaphor in my head, dieting is like banking. You deposit calories when you eat, and withdraw them when you exercise. Unlike real banking, where overdrawing is a terrible, terrible thing, in dieting you want to withdraw more calories than you've deposited. Life is so much easier when you make everything into a simplistic metaphor, isn't it?

Anyways, those of you who know me should know by now that I hate counting calories. I usually cringe at the thought of reading a nutrition label (especially for a product that I have just consumed; it's like finding out you did worse on a test than you had previously thought!) I was reading WebMD.com's Health and Cooking section (I highly recommend it to anyone) and came across the suggestion to keep a food journal. I found this awesome, blank Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone journal from God-knows-when and decided that would be come my new FOOD JOURNAL!

I try to keep it simple. At the end of each day, I write what I had for each meal, and any snacks in between. If something (or a combination of somethings) I ate made me feel sick, fat, greasy, healthy, whatever... I write that in there too. If I made a naughty food choice, then I can analyze which emotional or environmental influences possessed me to do so. Then I can make a sort of GAME-PLAN for the next day. This has really helped me be more conscious of what I'm eating. If I want to eat something naughty, I have to first weigh out the consequences (namely, how I'll feel when I have to write about it in that day's entry.) The good thing is, instead of beating myself up over one bad choice, I can just write about it and have a plan for the next time I'm confronted with that or a similar situation.

Here's an example of an entry. This was Sunday, June 4, 2010:

• Skipped breakfast (woke up at 11:30)
• Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich w/ Muenster cheese, sweet potato fries, Cherry-Pom juice.
• Dinner (Ward Break-the-Fast): Subbed Garden Burger w/ Provolone for hamburger, hot dog (made me feel gross), wedge of watermelon, 2 small handfuls of potato chips, 2 cookies.
• Late-night snack: Chocolate Slim-Fast w/ PB and banana (ended up being too much)
• Tomorrow: Cereal and juice for breakfast, Take a Fiber One bar for a work snack, COME HOME for lunch, Chicken or pasta for dinner w/ salad (but go easy on the cheese and dressing)
  

See, it's not so hard!

I've been keeping said journal for just over a week, and I've already noticed emotional and physical differences. I don't feel like I've lost weight quite yet (although a few people have noted a slight difference); however, all this eating well has made my tummy-box not feel quite so broken.

I know this was an extremely lengthy post in comparison with my usual ramblings. But this food journal has really been a great addition to my daily life. It might not be YOUR solution (heck, it might not even be MY solution!) Find something that works for you! If you need some great ideas on living and cooking healthy, sign up for WebMD's Health and Cooking emails (found at the bottom right of the webpage.) They rock.