This week I urge you to keep a food journal. An honest food journal (remember you don't have to show this to anyone so be honest with yourself!). Write down everything you eat each day this week and take note of how you feel when you eat. Are you hungry, happy, sad, in a hurry, frustrated, angry? This will accomplish many things. Primarily it will allow you to see exactly the kind of fuel you are putting in your body and why. So often I hear people talk about how they don't eat very much, and are wondering if perhaps they have a problem contributing to a slower metabolism, keeping them from losing weight. I immediately ask what they ate that day. Tell me everything. They begin with breakfast, lunch and dinner and then it sounds like this...Oh and I had a handful of nuts and I did stop at Starbucks for a venti non-fat green tea latte (more on this later), when I made my kids lunches I ate the crusts from the sandwiches, I ate a few bites of chocolate cake, ice cream, had a glass of wine, grabbed a handful of goldfish, chips, and on and so forth. My point is that while I don't want you to feel bad about these behaviors, I do want you to realize that all food has calories, even the small bites and handfuls that we mindlessly eat. So in order to really get a firm grasp on how much and what kinds of food we are consuming, we need to write it down. How many times have we said, ugh I'm starving, I haven't eaten all day! Only to remember that, oh yes, I did have a bowl of cereal this morning, a banana at noon and a small bag of chips at three. While that is not very much food, it is food and has calories. So in fact you did eat and now you need to have a dinner that is nutritious, being careful not to over consume because you think you didn't eat yet that day. A note on cooking - observe how much and what you eat as you are making meals. It's very common to taste and snack as we cook and again, we are putting calories in our bodies when we do this.
So, keep your food journal this week. If you want to begin cutting out foods that you know are not serving you well, feel free. Otherwise take the week as a normal (normal for you and your lifestyle) week and evaluate your log at the end of each day. Look at the kinds of foods you eat, which food groups do they come from, are they fresh or processed, fast food, look at your portions (yes, write down your portion sizes as this is another source of miscalculation for most) and the times that you eat. Each day rate your eating on a scale of 1-10, did you eat nutritious foods and did you eat the right amount of food for your lifestyle. In other words, do you have a desk job or a physically active job? Do you exercise everyday? This will all play a part in how much you should be eating each day.
Last week we mentally prepared for our year and this week we are taking notes on our lifestyle so we can make wise and educated changes in the upcoming weeks. This is necessary and will pay off. Some of the most common judgement errors we make regarding our health are overestimating how many calories we burn while exercising, under estimating how many calories we eat daily and believing that we eat a well rounded, balanced diet. Let's see how we are doing.
~One Body, One Life~
Jennifer
