The use of a food diary cannot be underestimated. It will
help you to become more conscious of your eating habits and
highlight any problem areas you have. You can list what you
have eaten and your motivations for it. You should also
outline any exercise you have taken, or not taken, and
again describe how you were feeling prior to, during and
after the activity. You can also use your diary to set out
a plan for the coming week. You just tell yourself that if
it's in the diary then it has to be done. In this way you
can break up, what may seem like, momentous goals into
small achievable tasks.
This type of diary builds the foundations on which you can
plan any necessary changes. These changes then act as a
guide for setting weight-loss, eating and exercise goals. A
food diary is a great way of tracking your progress. It
gives you the opportunity to look back over the course of
days, weeks and months to see how you have altered your
approach and reached your goals. This is extremely
motivating and reassuring. As you see how well you have
done you are spurred on to even greater action. Likewise,
when you see the times that you slipped-up and read your
comments about how you were feeling at the time you will
find yourself empowered to do something about because you
have full control.
A food diary gives you the opportunity to make a conscious
choice about your eating habits instead of going on
automatic around food. Writing down what you can eat and
can't eat and reviewing your goals for the day sets out a
clear plan and allows you to think twice before you act. A
daily and weekly diary, with goals and strategies, is an
approach used in business and by almost all high-achievers.
They use it because it works.
To begin with you will just right down everything you eat
and drink during the day. You will add your leisure
activities like walking, jogging or just watching
television. After you have performed the task, or even
during it, jot down the way you were feeling and why you
chose to do that activity (even if it's eating). This will
allow you to analyse your motivations.
Once you have a week's full of diary entries look back over
it. You will find definite patterns emerging. Look closely
at those patterns and use them to structure an eating and
exercise plan for the upcoming week. Write an entry each
day of what you will eat and what activity you will perform
to help shed those excess pounds. For example, if you find
that you are eating at certain times during the day because
you are bored then this is an excellent time to pen into
your diary an exercise activity or anything else that will
relieve the boredom! Diligence and persistence is required
to keep and follow your food diary but once you do the
rewards are tremendous. Many people do not realize just how
much they snack or eat due to reasons that have nothing to
do with hunger. Your diary will help you see and deal with
such times. It will also help you to formulate realistic
goals because you have to put the activities and food you
will eat down on paper. At the start you may overload your
diary with activities and realize you need to cut down or
you may find you have extra time on your hands that is
leading to boredom and eating.
Don't forget to mention how you are feeling. Our emotions
truly do rule our behaviour. The more honest you are with
yourself the more you will get out of this process. If you
find that you are eating from stress or emotional issues
then put it into your diary, as one of your activities,
that you need to find techniques and approaches to deal
with these emotions. For example you could check out
hypnosis and other mind programming techniques as they have
a very high success rate at dealing with such emotional
issues.
Keeping a diary can take some getting used to in the
beginning, and to many it may sound like a waste of time,
but it is a proven method for helping reach and maintain a
healthy weight and has been shown to help people reach
goals of all kinds.
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