Good Tuesday ALL!
I have so many people that has asked
me what has been the most beneficial things used to lose weight. Some will
think the workouts or the Shakeology. Both of those have proved to be great
tools and I don't think I would have lost 85lbs in about 8.5 months without them.
You will be surprise to hear that what has helped me the most was
writing/logging down my foods! Many of you may know that I use www.myfitnesspal.com
to log my foods daily, but I have also used www.sparkpeople.com and other apps to log in my
foods (all free sites). Since that was what I would call the main factor in me
losing the weight, I wanted to create a 31 Day Food Journaling Challenge!
Why are you creating the Challenge?
I have found myself not logging in
all of my foods or not logging in the "bad days". This is something
that I did consistently at the beginning. It is really a challenge for myself,
but why have all of the fun and gain all of the benefits. :-) Sharing is
Caring!
Is there a difference between Food
Logging and Food Journaling?
Yes, it is. With Food Logging, you
are just logging in what you eat and totaling up the calories. With Food
Journaling, it is logging your food with the total of calories and reflecting
on how you felt while eating the foods, what made you eat the foods, did you
skip any meals and etcetera. This is something that I need to work more on and
will be part of the challenge.
What is the Challenge?
This is a very simple and very
difficult challenge all at the same time. It is very important in weight loss
especially if you are working out like crazy! You may not see the results you
desire if you have no idea what you are consuming. This will be a 31 day
challenge and will run from March 1- March 31st and can be as complex or as
simple as you need it to be. This should not be a stressful process. It
should only aid in becoming a healthier you and helping to shed those stubborn
pounds.
Journaling Options:
Write down every meal, your mood, your energy, how long it took, how hungry you
were, how you felt after. Be consistent in what you track. You can track how
much or less that you desire. Minimum tracking every meal and daily reflection
is required.
Take a picture of every meal (this has really been shown to help improve food
choices) and jot down your thoughts
Buy a journal.
Use an online App such as
myfitnesspal, lose it, or sparkpeople and take advantage of the note section of
the daily log area.
Decide if you want to use a digital journal or pen/paper
Share your food journal if you think that will help you stay more accountable.
As a mini challenge you
must try 3 new fruits and/or vegetables for the 31 days!
If you are doing the Challenge Via Instagram, Tag your pictures to: #31DayFJChallenge
"Don’t be scared of the ‘bad days’
Please understand that there are
no bad foods or bad days, and that these days are just as
important to report as the good days.
Remember that guilty days
where we feel like we’ve cheated our body are only bad patterns that
come to the forefront when we’re journaling. It’s important that we record each
and every thing, no matter how we feel about ourselves during/after we ate it. The
whole reason behind food journaling is to begin to understand why we made these
choices, so write it all down!
All the answers are right there
So you’ve recorded a week. Now what?
Set aside a couple of minutes per
week to review your journal to understand:
· What you eat
· When you eat
· How much
· Where
· With whom
· Why
From there, you can begin to look at
what you’ve eaten and start picking out patterns. Some things I look for:
· How many fruits, vegetables, proteins are you getting on a
daily basis? Are there days where you had more of one type of food that you
felt better than other days?
· Are you skipping meals and subsequently overeating later in
the day?
· Are your meals balanced? Are you eating all of your starchy
foods in the morning and packing in the protein in the afternoon?
· Is there a long span of time between meals?
· Do you notice any food groups that are completely missing?
· Do you notice you overeat if you wait too long in between
your meals?
· What is the perfect amount of time between each of your
meals? What is too long, what is too short?
· Do you get a particular symptom after eating a certain type
of food?
· What is the ideal day for you? What patterns were you
following that day? Why did you feel so good?
· Is there a meal that you may have too often?
· When you consider the day as a whole, is most of what’s
being consumed whole, unprocessed food or is it primarily packaged?
Translating the answers into solutions
Now you know all of these neat
things about yourself. How does that help you exactly?
I usually add a blank page to my
journal and write down all of the things I learned in the previous week.
Then I write a list of the things I’ll work on for the following week. For
instance, here’s the list of things I’m currently working on:
· Remember to take my B complex daily. It really helps with
brain fuzziness.
· Try to have at least 1 vegetable protein per day, preferably
in the morning.
· Increase protein during my morning snack, maybe with stevia
sweetened coconut flour muffins?
I refer back to this list on a daily basis to make sure that
I’m setting some of the learnings into action!"
Try Food Journaling out and I am sure you will see huge changes! Let's do THIS!!! March will be awesome!
The Girly Engineer
