Will You Just Start Food Journaling Already!

Are you frustrated with your weight loss efforts? Do you want to throw in the towel in grand fashion and head on over to the Golden Corral to have yourself the biggest, most indulgent pity party only the GC can provide, with its “all you can eat, super-sized” buffet?

Does the resurgence of the summertime ice cream man send chills down your spine as soon as you hear his creepy jingle booming from his truck as he slowly makes his way up your street? (Does it take this guy an eternity to make it down one street or what? I swear, I feel like as soon as I hear that one-of-a-kind ice cream ditty I’m constantly aware of it for the next 45 minutes until it finally fades off into the distance.)

If you experience bouts of anxiety during such experiences, or just want to throw in the towel because the number on the scale isn’t moving, then I implore you to stop, take a deep breath, and repeat after me. “I am just having a bad moment. This urge/crave/creepy song shall soon pass. Besides, if I cave in I’ll have to write everything I consume down in my food journal (ah-ha!) and it’s not gonna be pretty and I’m gonna feel guilty for it afterwards which in turn will start a downward spiral resulting with me, pants unbuckled, bags of chips and cookies littered about in my wake.”

I threw in the “ah-ha” moment for you in case it didn’t jump out and slap you out of your potential downward spiral. Food journal. Yes! That’s what will save you and that is what is going to help you the most when it comes to weight loss. (This doesn’t mean exercise is stricken from the record. You need that as well… but as I said yesterday, even starting off with just 10 minutes will help to make a difference. A big one.)

But wait, you don’t have a food journal you say? To help all my non-journaling, weight loss pursuant readers out there, I have attached a food journal template that I created in Powerpoint, readily available to reside happily on your computer desktop. LBD Food & Exercise Journal Download it (if you can, if not let me know and I can email it to you) and use it.

“In a recent study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, participants who kept food journals lost almost double the weight of their non-journaling counterparts.” (Keeping Food Diary Doubles Weight Loss). Double. Did you see that part?

Now I know it can be a pain in the ass to keep a food journal, but let me tell you, since I started keeping one in January of this year, I have lost 8 pounds. It takes some getting used to but once you get into the habit, it’s a no-brainer. And it can save you from hours of mindless, nutrition-less eating.

Try it. All you need is a journal and a goal and I guarantee you will lose weight. If you want, send me your completed food journal after one week and if I notice any typical food ‘offenders’ on there, I can help point them out to you so you can get a better idea of where you may be going wrong. You’d be surprised to see that what you think is healthy could actually be sabotaging your efforts.

Food journaling. Just do it already so I can stop feeling like a nag. (And if you are doing it, keep it up!)