Tracking Your Meals: The Way To Do It

By Christopher Difiore


When you decide to go on a diet one of the primary things that you will learn is that it is important to keep track of what you eat during the day. Keeping your meal record not only helps you see clearly what you are eating, it helps you see what you are not eating. For example, after keeping a food journal for a few days, you might see that you are not taking in very many vegetables but that you are consuming lots of sugar and bad carbohydrates. Having it all written down may help you identify the aspects of your diet that need to change as well as how much exercise you need to get to make sure that you burn enough calories to keep your waistline in check.

But what if you write almost everything down but no weight drop off of you? There is a great way and a sluggish method to track the food you eat. A food journal is more than just a simple list of the foods you eat during a day. You need to note down other important pieces of information as well. Here are a few of the tips that can help you become much more successful at food tracking.

You should be very particular when you write down the things that you are eating. You need to do more than simply write down "salad" into your food journal. You should list every one of the components within that salad as well as the type of dressing on it. You ought to include the quantity of the food you take in. "Cereal" won't be enough however "one cup Fiber One cereal" is okay. Don't forget that the more of something you take in, the more calories you are going to consume so you need to list out the measurements of what you eat so that you will know exactly how many calories you take in and will need to burn.

Write down the time that you are eating items. This helps you determine when you feel the most hungry, when you are susceptible to snack and what you can do about it. After a day or two you might notice that, although you eat lunch at the same time each day, you still feel hungry an hour or so later. You should also be able to discover whether or not you might be eating because you're bored. This is important simply because, once they are identified, you can find other ways to fill those moments than with unhealthy foods.



Write down your emotions when you eat. This can show you if you use food to solve emotional issues. It also makes it possible to see clearly which foods you have a tendency to choose when you find yourself in certain moods. There a wide range of people who seek junk food when they feel angry or depressed and are just as likely to choose healthy things when they feel happy and content. Paying attention to what you reach for while you are upset can help you stock similar but better items in your house for when you need a snack-you could also start talking to someone to figure out why you cure moods with food (if that is something that you actually do).




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment