Using A Food Journal On A Weight Loss Program: An Important Part of Weight Loss
Accountability
If you are looking for quick weight loss, accountability is one of the most important aspects of all weight loss programs. Writing down what you are eating at each meal and being able to look back at your daily intake allows you to see exactly where you may have deviated or how well you are doing when looking for rapid weight loss. This allows you to point to something tangible when you are reflecting on your diet with your weight loss goal in mind. I speak with people every day at work that talk to me about their “diet” and I ask a very simple question: “How many calories a day are you eating?” I would say that 70-80 percent of people respond “I don’t know.” I can almost guarantee that the guess is much less than their actual caloric intake. Whenever you are on a weight loss program take the extra time and take the guess work out of your diet, keep a food journal.
Makes you stop before you chomp
The extra dressing you poured on your salad, the drink you did not even think twice about, the 200 calorie “energy bar” that is loaded with carbs and sugar, the spoon full of peanut butter snuck in when no one else is in the kitchen, they all add up to an extra 300-700 calories throughout the day. Most people completely over look these types of calories without even realizing this. People just add up their meals in their heads, forgetting some or all of the snacking and drinks that add up.
Please contact us if you have questions or want to learn more about our weight loss programs or Botox and Fillers:
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- Or visit us online to schedule an appointment: http://fitmedicalweightloss.com/
Helps to truly portion out your foods for rapid weight loss
On any weight loss plan when you start a food diary most people become much more meticulous about measuring their food. Food diaries make you more aware and limit extra bites of food and over eating, successfully keeping you from an additional 100-300 cals. For example someone might say I had a chicken breast and vegetables adding up to around 230 cals. That might be a large chicken breast, there might me a marinade on it and you might have had 2 cups of vegetables when the original estimate is for around 1 cup. Calories can add up fast when you guess and you can miss hundreds of calories per meal. Once you use more accurate methods of measurement you have a much better understanding of overall portion distortion and how that could negatively affect your weight loss program.
Ties in the connections to stress,
emotion,
timing and location on a weight loss program
When on a weight loss plan, in addition to just writing down calories a food journal also helps to include the time of day, location, and emotional level or how you feel during your meal or snack. This will help identify emotional eating which can be a problem for many people. It also helps spot bad habits, how and where you eat and how this affects the food choices you make. There are many things that go into every decision we make when it comes to food on a weight loss program and for the most part people are far to cavalier with food. Making the switch to a regimented weight loss plan can be difficult if you do not address bad habits that could be derailing your weight loss.
Lastly, be honest on your weight loss program
You gain nothing by being dishonest when using your food journal, you are only hurting yourself. Others cannot help you if you are not willing to be honest with yourself about your food intake. You don’t want to blame your lack of weight loss on something else instead of the one thing that you can control. Most people who are not successful on their weight loss program have stopped following their eating plan and are only frustrating themselves, or they realize it and don’t want to admit it.
A food journal acts as an important metric while on a weight loss program allowing you something quantifiable to point to, effectively taking the guess work out of dieting and weight loss.
Please contact us if you have questions or want to learn more about our weight loss programs or Botox and Fillers: