Tracking Your Foods: The Proper Way To Do It

By Greg Aaron


When you first start your diet one of the things you will learn right away is that keeping a food journal is very helpful. Keeping a food journal helps you identify the foods you are eating as well as the foods you aren't eating. For example, after maintaining a food record for a few days, you might see that you are not consuming very many vegetables but that you are consuming lots of sugar and bad carbohydrates. When you write every little thing down you can see which parts of your diet must change as well as have a lot easier time figuring out what kind and how long of a workout you need to do to shrink your waist line and burn the most calories.

But what happens if you write each and every thing down but still are unable to figure out how to shed weight? There is a great way and a lazy way to track the food you eat. A food log isn't merely a list of the items you've eaten during the day. Other varieties of important information will certainly need to be written down too. Here are a number of tips that you can employ to help your food tracking be more successful.

Be as particular as you can when you write down what you eat. It just isn't enough to just record "salad" on a list. You should record each of the ingredients within that salad as well as the type of dressing on it. You must also write down how much of the foods you are eating. "Cereal" is just not as good an entry as "one cup Honey Nut Cheerios." Don't forget that the more of some thing you eat, 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 the time that you're consuming items. This allows you to see what times of day you feel the hungriest, when you are likely to reach for a snack and the right way to work around those times. After a day or two you could notice that, even though you eat lunch at the same time each day, you still feel hungry an hour or so later. You may also be able to determine when you are eating in order to have something to do. This is important mainly because, once they are revealed, you can find other ways to fill those moments than with unhealthy foods.



Record your feelings while you eat. This really helps to show you whether or not you use food as a reaction to emotional issues. It will even identify the meals you choose when you are in certain moods. Many of us will reach for junk foods when we are upset, angry or depressed and will be more likely to choose healthier options when we are happy or content. Paying attention to what you reach for when you are upset can help you stock similar but healthier 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).




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment