One thing I often battle with my clients over is keeping a food journal. They don’t want to bother with it. It seems like too much work.
The work isn’t just in writing down what you eat. The work really happens in planning your food and calorie intake. This definitely takes planning and forethought.
When you journal, you can’t eat mindlessly. You’re conscious of every choice, every serving, and every calorie. To stay in your calorie goal and stick to healthy eating, you have to think about your food.
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Watch portions and calories.
Weight loss still comes down to calories in versus calories out. Over the course of the day, you need to burn more calories than you eat.
How do you do that? By paying attention to your portions and calories.
The best way to do this is by keeping a food journal. Most people grossly underestimate the amount of food and calories they eat in a day. By journaling, you can keep accurate account of your food intake.
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It’s so true what Dr. Phil says: “Weight is managed, not cured.” People who continue to lose weight, or who keep the weight off, are people who do the things it takes to manage their weight.
Can you imagine what would happen if you didn’t manage your money? What if you simply spent your money without tracking it? If you wrote checks without balancing your checkbook, or never bothered to write in deposits? It would be a mess!
In simple terms, this is called having a budget. You know when money is coming in, what money is going out, and how much is left over to spend. You have to keep a close eye on your money to keep it well managed.
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Keeping a food journal is one of the best tools for weight loss. It keeps you honest about your eating and on target with your calories.
All you need is a small notebook that fits in your purse or desk drawer. Keep a pen clipped onto it so you can jot down your foods throughout the day. If you’re not fast at adding, you may also want to keep a small calculator nearby.
Every time you eat, write the food and the calories in your journal. Several times a day subtotal your calories to see how many you’ve used. Here is a sample of what a 1500-calorie food journal could look like:
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For many people, keeping a food journal all day long is tedious, if not almost impossible. If you work in the health care field, at a factory, etc., you may be unable to keep a journal with you or have the time to keep a running total. Even if you do have the time, you may hate writing everything down and adding up calories.
There’s a simple way around this – and you can still eat healthy foods in your calorie range. So go ahead and ditch the journal!
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