Food Logging: How it Can Help You to Lose Weight
Mmmmm, cheesecake!
When your goal is to log every bite of food you have, you’ll become more of an intentional eater. Take this real-life example, from the Lose It! office earlier this week. One of their colleagues brought some cheesecake back to the office after his lunch and left it on the kitchen counter, offering it up to the office. None of his officemates ate the cheesecake. Why? Here was their thought process: “Ooh, there’s some cheesecake in the office—I’ll just have a small slice. Well, if I do that, I have to track it. That’s kind of a waste of my calories. And I know how many calories are in cheesecake—yikes! Hmm, I’ll pass on the cheesecake this time.”
Resist and Record
Since they knew they had to track everything they consumed, passing on the cheesecake wasn’t hard. By being conditioned to track every bite you eat, it becomes a LOT easier to resist tempting foods and you learn to become more selective about what you want to put in your mouth. This isn’t to say that you can’t allow yourself a small treat once in a while, but tracking everything allows you to put your day’s or even week’s intake into perspective. By establishing this habit, it will prevent you from eating mindlessly, which will help you to eat less and lose weight.
How can you build the habit of food logging?
Building up the habit of logging each and every bite is certainly valuable, but how can you get started? Make it an hour-to-hour, day-to-day goal. First aim to track everything you eat in the morning, then aim to track everything you eat in the afternoon and evening. It sounds simple, but breaking the day into smaller portions of time is a great trick to make sure you log all your food. Another option is to plan out your full day of food—and log it all—before you even start your day, and then add and delete throughout the day. This technique can also help you to stick to your plan.
Start using Lose it! and get $10 back
If you are ready to start taking charge of your health, sign up for a great food tracking app called Lose it! through this link: http://tinyurl.com/olmq647 If you sign up for the premium plan (only $40/year!) which has a lot more features than the basic plan, I will send you a check for $10, so you can get a 25% discount! After you sign up through this link, send me an email at marcy@columbianutrition.com with your mailing address and I will send you the check for $10. (I don’t make any money from this, I am just passionate about you taking care of you!)
