Food journaling can seem like a giant nuisance when you’re hoping to change your lifestyle to encourage weight loss success. That said, despite your first image of the experience, it can be the key to being able to reach your goal. Moreover, research has shown that people who use a nutrition tracker or diary will often lose weight more easily and quickly and will keep it off over time.
After all, with food journaling on your side, you educate yourself, create awareness, and build accountability for what you eat. It’s one of the most direct and proven effective ways you can use to keep yourself where you want to be.
What is Food Journaling?
Sometimes when people diet and exercise they still are not losing weight and do not understand why. Some people snack and do not even realize they are doing it, sometimes they just eat too much of the same foods (causing a plateau), or they might be eating the right food but the way they are preparing it is the cause of their weight gain. That is why food journaling for weight loss success is a great tool for all dieters.
How does it work?
Food journaling works by showing you all your calories, fat, and food intake. You can also detect patterns in your eating habits, whether they be good or bad. Food journaling does help with the success of your diet, but it also works if you are experiencing food allergy symptoms and cannot figure out what it is from. Even if you might be constipated, you can look back on your food journal and figure out where it is you may be going wrong.
How to food journal
When beginning a food journal think about why you are keeping one, whether it be for weight loss or just to see what might be making you feel ill. Make sure you are recording things relevant to that reason. Decide how often you should record, whether you should do it daily or every time you eat. Decide the details you want to include if it is for weight loss you may want to include calories, servings, or fat.
Be accurate about your portions, you would only be lying to yourself if you were not accurate about how much you ate of a certain food. Review your recordings weekly or as needed, just remember it is important to reflect. Lastly, do not be a perfectionist, people who feel they need to keep a perfect journal tend to fail, and have hopeless feelings when it comes to their weight loss goals.
Bonus Content
If you are looking for a food journal to inspire you to lose weight and keep it off there is a method to help you do just that. You can take pictures of healthy foods you enjoy, people you admire for their physique or discipline and add them to the inside or cover of your food journal. Your food journal should also include some motivational fitness or just motivational quotes, either on or in the cover and throughout the pages, even the ones you may not have used yet. That will give you something to look forward to as well.
Buddy Up!
If food journaling for yourself isn’t enough, buddy up with someone else whose healthy lifestyle goals are similar to yours. You don’t need to eat the same foods, have the same goals or plan to lose weight in the same way. As long as you need to prove to someone else that you’re doing what you promised yourself you would do, you’ll be more likely to do it.
Consider coming to an agreement with a friend in which you need to send each other your dinner pictures each day. Or take pictures of everything you eat on weekdays (taking weekends off from the photos, not the healthy lifestyle). This way, you can cheer each other on, identify trends and support each other in other ways, too. If you find that you’re not losing weight, your friend will have seen everything you eat and may offer suggestions. If you are losing weight, your ideas may inspire your friend – and you can gain inspiration from your buddy’s success, too!
Whatever the motivation of food journaling is, a food journal works for many people in many ways. In fact, people who used food journaling for weight loss success were more likely not only to succeed- but to keep the weight off. Most doctors actually recommend food journaling as a course of treatment for their obese patients. Food journaling is a challenge, but it is also very rewarding.
