Just the Words

A recent study conducted by a health insurance company found people who kept a regular and accurate food diary lost a higher percentage of weight.

The first step in using a food diary to help in weight loss is to keep a good diary. Use these columns:

• Time
• Food and / or drink
• Where and with who
• Feelings

When a food diary is first used the benefits will start right away. A food diary encourages a focus on food, simple knowledge that anything eaten will be written down will often mean that more thought is given before eating. Binges can be stopped before they start, and healthy choices are often made in the knowledge that it will all be written down. Thinking about food also stops those times when we almost unconsciously reach for a candy or a cookie.

Keeping a diary is also a regular affirmation that you are eating in a healthy way, every time a diary entry is made it motivates and reinforces the desire to lose weight through healthy eating.

As the food diary is used even more benefits appear. A health care provider or dietician can look at the diary and make recommendations, not just about specific weight loss issues but also about general health, what you are eating may be impacting your health in other ways.

A food diary can also be used to track your progress, you can see evidence of how much healthier your diet has become, it can also act as a motivator to see that you are eating better today than you were some time ago.

The food diary also helps to look at the reality of the food choices that you make, it is often said that the first step to correcting a problem is acknowledging that it exists in the first place. Looking at a food diary will show where the problem areas are and allow you to acknowledge them.

Analysis of the food diary will also provide valuable insights, and so give you new areas to improve and refine your weight loss efforts.

You can analyze the diary to check that you are getting the right proportions of fat, protein and carbohydrate. It is important to eat a balanced diet especially when dieting. You can also check for vitamin, mineral and other nutrient intake and start taking supplements if necessary or just adjust your meals.

One of the biggest benefits of keeping a food diary and analysing it is the ability to find your “bad choice” triggers. Once you know what causes you to overeat or reach for a mega chocolate bar then you can take action to either remove the trigger form your life or learn to deal with it in a way other than through food.

Persevere with keeping a food diary, in the beginning it may seem like a lot of trouble for little gain. But this is a proven strategy and the benefits build over time.

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