Tracking Your Meals: The Proper Way To Do It

By Wanda Waters


When you begin a diet just about the most often heard pieces of advice is to keep a food log in which you write down every thing you eat during the day. Keeping your food journal not only helps you see clearly what you are consuming, it helps you see what you are not eating. For example, after you keep a food record for a few days you may notice that even though you eat lots of fruit, you almost never eat any vegetables. Having it all written down may help you determine the parts 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 imagine if you write each and every thing down but still aren't able to figure out how to lose weight? There is a proper way and a completely wrong way to monitor your food. There is much more to food journaling than creating a listing of what you eat during the day. You have to account for a few other very important information. Here are some of the things you need to do to be more successful at food tracking.

You ought to be very particular while you write down the things that you are eating. You should do more than merely write down "salad" into your food journal. The proper way to do it is usually to record all of the ingredients in the salad as well as the kind of dressing that is used. You also need to include the number of the foods you consume. "Cereal" will not be sufficient but "one cup Fiber One cereal" is fine. Don't forget that the more of some thing you consume, the more calories you are going to ingest so you need to list out the measurements of what you eat so that you will know just how many calories you take in and will need to burn.

Write down exactly what time it is when you eat. This can help you discover when you feel the most hungry, when you are susceptible to snack and what you can do about it. You'll observe, for example, that although you eat lunch at the very same time every day, you also--without fail--start to snack as little as an hour later, every day. You could also be able to determine when you are eating in order to have something to do. This is unbelievably useful because knowing when you're vulnerable to snacking will help you fill those times with other pursuits that will keep you away from the candy aisle.



Record your feelings while you eat. This makes it possible to determine when you use foods to help soothe emotional issues. It will also identify the meals you decide on when you are in certain moods. Lots of us will reach instinctively for unhealthy foods when we feel upset or angry and we are more likely to pick out healthy options when we feel happy or content. Paying attention to what you reach for if you find yourself upset just might help you stock similar but better items in your house for when you need a snack-you could also begin talking to someone to figure out why you cure moods with food (if that is something that you actually do).




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