28Jun, 2010

Markham Personal Trainer lists out 8 reasons to write a food journal

Hey …hope you are doing awesome!

It’s that tagged picture from Facebook…or the number on the scale that is 5 lbs heavier than it should be. It’s the wakeup call that something is definitely NOT working. Either you keep getting bigger or your inches and weight keep increasing.

But you’re doing everything right…right?

It happens to the best of us. We think we are doing the right things but..a few carbs here…an alcoholic drink (or two) there…one cookie won’t hurt right?

For me it was the scale that was the wakeup call. I usually hover around 173 to 175. But after a month of not checking (and overall bad behaviour) I jumped on and saw 178.6 lbs staring me back in the face…WTH!

It wasn’t awful but it was enough to wake me up.

And it was the wakeup call I needed. Being a former fat boy I gotta be careful. I don’t have the luxury of good genetics. I CAN’T eat anything I want and not get fat. My best friend can do that (whatta jerk) but not me.

I know if I slip too much…there may be no coming back or the road back to leanness will be a long one.

So I did what I needed to do to get back on track: I went back to the basics and started to log my food intake in a journal.

Working out wasn’t the problem. It was the extra calories I was taking in without noticing.

Since I started food journaling again I brought my weight down to a respectable 175 lbs and counting.

Here are the 8 benefits to keeping an honest food journal:

- you monitor your daily food intake
- it encourages you to focus on food choices
- helps you control the urge to binge eat
- allows you to track progress “What gets measured gets managed” – Peter Drucker
- it encourages mindful eating
- allows to you evaluate the connection between what you eat and how you are feeling
- helps you get enough of each food group
- it keeps you in a reality check of how much you really eat.

What you should track in your food journal:

- type of meal (be totally honest, track everything)

- Liquid you drank with it

- timing of the meal (so you can see if you are truly eating every 2-3 hours a day)

- mood and how you are feeling at that time.

Do a food journal for 21 days and you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll be able to change your eating habits. Your body will definitely get slimmer by keeping one.

I just made food journals for my bootcamp clients to further cement those healthy eating habits. I have no doubt they will benefit from it.

Hope this email helped you!

Talk soon,

Dan

Sent from my iPod

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Markham Boot Camp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted by Dan Go | in Markham Boot Camp | 1 Comment

Comments on “Markham Personal Trainer lists out 8 reasons to write a food journal” (1)

Luther Miyataki

November 13, 2010 at 5:28 am

Great blog! I like how everything is well written. I will be back to check for new posts. Thanks!!

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