Three-Day Journal Challenge
Are you up for a three-day challenge? How about tracking your food and beverage intake for 3 days? This may be your secret to success. Check out this blog and you will find some tracking tools that you can use. If you want to share your results, simply schedule a complimentary Discovery Call. We can review your information together.
Why it Works
Journaling is a behavior that drives awareness. Living in our face-paced world filled with overstimulation and external cues, we often make last minute decisions about what we eat. For example, we may grab a quick bite from a drive-thru or wander into our kitchen to stare into the refrigerator or pantry and pick the fastest food available.
When we journal what we eat, we may opt to not open the bag of chips but instead, make a sandwich or salad. Research shows that people who journal actually lose weight and keep it off longer. When they stop journaling, they no longer are paying as much attention. Old habits can come back along with the pounds.
Why Do People Resist Food Tracking
If people do better with achieving and sustaining their weight loss by tracking, why do people stop? Some of my clients share ‘they don’t like to’; ‘they don’t have time’; ‘they forget’ … and so on. As a nutrition coach, when my clients are tracking, I can zoom in and provide guidance. We can modify their meal plans and infuse new ideas to keep it fun.
Easy Ways to Track
There are many apps on the market as well as good old-fashioned paper and pen. The benefit of the apps is they can push reminders to journal as well as the ability to add up your daily totals of calories and nutrients. If the main reason is lack of time, here are three simple ways to become super successful at managing your weight through journaling:
My Fitness Pal App: This is a tried and true app that allows you to record your foods in detail to track the calories, carbs, fat, protein, fiber, vitamins/minerals. It is really helpful when I work with clients so we can fine tune the meal plans to hit our targets. You can also scan bar codes and save favorites to speed things up. There is a free and premium version.
See How You Eat Food Diary App: This is a really cool app that allows you to take pictures of your meals. It is super-fast and you can title the pictures. Then you can review your day or a few days to check your overall progress. There is a free and premium version.
VIP Nutrition Coach Clients: My clients have access to an app built right into my electronic health record. This is awesome because I can see it real-time. Then together we can adjust your meal plan or refresh it with some new recipes. You can be detailed like the My Fitness Pal, or just keep it simple by adding pictures, more like the See How You Eat Food Diary. Either method works for some of my most successful clients. I also have many of my clients include how they feel before they eat and after in order to track hunger and satiety, emotional eating and health symptoms such as irritable bowel.
If you are ready to get a handle on your nutrition for increasing energy, improving health or losing weight… I am a true fan of food journaling. If you feel you would like a professional to provide guidance, book a complimentary discovery call. I would love to support you on your journey to achieve your goals.
Yours in good health~
Debbie