For a few days in January I ate really well: Lots of fish and vegetables, a smidgen of dairy, and very few carbohydrates and fat. These are the pages I like to look at in my weight-loss food diary. (I considered putting gold stars on those pages, but my three-year-old won’t let me borrow any from her stash.)
Most of the pages, however, I want to rip out. They’re embarrassing. Big Mac here, brownie binge there.
I’m journaling for a 12-week weight-loss class. A dietitian discusses nutrition and eating habits with us in class, and our journals serve as our guide to our individual dining peccadilloes. Everything goes into the journal—from the egg sandwich I had for breakfast to the half a chocolate cupcake I scarfed down on the way to lunch the other day.
Food diaries are useful tools for keeping track of calorie and fat intake, but they serve a bigger purpose in weight-loss programs: They show the dieter just how much they eat—in my case it’s a lot—and the poor choices they make. That’s why journaling is a part of major dieting programs like Weight Watchers and why companion diaries are published with popular diet books, like The Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workbook: The 6-Week Plan to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person.
My nutritionist loves them. It’s easy to see why. Here’s a sample entry from my journal for Jan. 27.
Breakfast:
3 chocolate-chip pancakes, no topping (271 cal, 2g fat)
1 scrambled egg (102 cal, 27g fat)
Mood: cheerful
Lunch:
Fried chicken: 1 breast, 1 leg (620 cal, 38g fat)
Buttermilk biscuit (190 cal, 3g fat)
Green beans, cooked with ham (50 cal, 2g fat)
Mac and cheese (137 cal, 6g fat)
Mood: stressed out
Dinner:
2 fried crab angels (290 calories, 16g fat)
3 California rolls (200 caloroies, 11g fat)
Pad thai (about 500 calories, 16 grams fat)
2 glasses red wine (48 calories, 0 grams fat)
Mood: excited, hurried
After-dinner snack:
3 oz single-malt Scotch (200 calories, 0 grams fat)
Mood: happy
There’s a lot to interpret here, besides the specifics that include my weekend routine of making chocolate-chip pancakes for my daughter, post-church lunch with my extended family, and dinner with my wife before a concert. There are emotional cue points that contribute to my overeating. There are two meals that were prepared by restaurants. There’s a little alcohol with dinner, which led to more alcohol afterward.
More to the point: There are a horrifying number of poor choices on that entry. Fried chicken? I’m supposed to be on a diet! Chocolate-chip pancakes, Scotch, and wine in the same day? I’m diabetic for Pete’s sake. And I’m pretty certain the list is incomplete. (I’m not entirely sure what happened after the Scotch.)
If you add it all up, I consumed roughly 2,600 calories (that’s 600 more than my diet allows) and 121 grams of fat (way more than what I should be eating).
Thankfully, my class—and my eating re-education—continues for at least six more weeks.
Competition Numbers:
Start date: 1/1/08
Height: 5′7″
Start weight: 200.4 lbs
Latest weigh-in: 2/14/08
Latest weight: 186 lbs
Weight lost: 14.4 lbs
Comments (9)
I started using TheDailyPlate a few months ago to track both my eating habits and my weight loss. It’s definitely been insightful, and I also think it’s helped stop me from eating junk sometimes, because I know I’ll be embarrassed to log it later!
Great for you Laura! Shame is a great motivator—at least for me. I wore a shirt to the office the other day that I bought before my recent weight gain. It finally fits again. I have put it on a number of times in the last two years just to see if it fit. I’ve got another shirt I’ve bought for when this journey is over. I can’t wait to fit into it!
But shame’s not the only reason I like the diary; it’s shown me patterns and triggers I didn’t know about before. If I let myself get hungry, for example, I binged. I also tended to eat unhealthy items after 9 p.m., which tended to elevate my blood sugar while I slept, not to mention packed on the weight.
Are you dieting or just trying to maintain your weight? How’s it going?
Your food journal is really good, I think we have to reach our weight loss goals while preparing good food journal plan and we have to concentrate on our food journal it helps to reducing more weight. Regular exercises also give more improvement on losing weight, I think this post is really helpful to the people.
Sean,
I think it is wonderful that you are journalling as it has been proven to be a very important tool to aid in weight loss. I would love to send you a complimentary copy of our journal called WriteTOLose. Send me your address, and I will send you a journal. It really helps you stay on top of your eating behaviors crucial to weight loss. I created it because that is how I lost 80 pounds and kept it off. Through journalling! Thanks! Laurie Schiff
Laurie,
Where can I check out your journal? I try journaling but each tool I have used doesn’t quite find its way to go with me.
Kathy
I have a question about food and journaling. I have heard that I should eat a small meal every 2-3 hours and I have heard not to eat until you feel real hunger pangs. I personally prefer the latter because I can’t remember to eat that often. But when real hunger comes it comes in hard and I tend to overeat or eat the wrong food. That I can take care of by having the right foods prepared but which is it every 2 hours or when real hunger comes?
Lorna
Meridian, Idaho
Does anyone know of a site that has an exercise chart/journal to visually track your exercise workouts?
Journaling is the only way to stay true to yourself and to your fitness and weight loss goals. When you write it down, you are making a mental pack with yourself that this is what you did, good or bad. When I tell people that I require my clients to write in the journal, they can’t believe that they actually do it. But they do and they learn. That is actually the lesson, to learn so that you know exactly what to do and what not to do.
In answer to Caver’s question about an online journal, have you tried Fitday.com? It allows you to enter both activities and food.
Carol Dunlop
http://www.optimumbodysculpting.com
Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!