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Food journaling – some people hate it and some people love it. What ever the emotion, food journaling is acknowledge by many “professional loser” as a weight loss tool that gives results. This post is a discussion of my thoughts on the different “loser” category we fall under, food journaling, and calorie counting.
Weight Loser Categories
According to my bowling team mate, Steve, there are a few categories of weight losers:
-”professional loser” (aka. the biggest loser) who lose/re-gain 100+ pounds.
-”amateur loser” who lose/re-gain 40-50 pounds.
-”recreational loser” who lose/re-gain 20-30 pounds
-”vanity loser” who lose/re-gain 10-15 pounds
What kind of weight loser are you?
Steve is a self proclaimed “amateur loser.” We recently had a conversation about low carb eating and smaller portions that made me realize why he falls under the amateur category.
I fall under the “vanity loser” category. I gained about 15 pounds from my car accident. I got rid of 10 pounds from exercising and food journaling. I would not mind losing another 10 pounds (that would put me at the same weight as my 23 year old self), but it is a secrete hope that requires too much diligence from me to think it might become a reality any time soon.
Thoughts on Food Journaling
Though I am not dieting, I am tracking how many calories I am eating with my new heart rate monitor. For the last 5 years, I have track my calories on-again-off-again. Whenever I find my pants a little too tight, I resume food journaling.
Food journaling helps me become aware of the amount of food that I am eating. It is easy during weight maintenance to slip back into our unhealthy habits without some daily reminder to eat less. For the average person, we are bombard with large quantities of food multiple times a day. Without some way of keeping track of how much we already eaten, it is easy to forget about the little bites, such as a handful of peanuts or that can of soda.
Just like regular weigh-ins are important for weight maintenance, but only if we are not obsessive about this helpful too.
Thoughts on Calorie Counting
One of the reasons given for hating calorie counting in Kelly Turner”s blog is that it is “time consuming and mundane.” And it is — if you want to track your calories like an IRS audit. Instead, I have a general running tally and round everything up to the nearest 50 or 100.
For example, if the ice cream bar I am eating is 280 calories, I would log 300 calories on my heart rate monitor. If the glass of juice has 120 calories, then I might round down to 100 (depending on my mood).
Once I hit 1500-1600 calories, then it is time to spend an additional few minutes exercising to mitigate for the extra calories. I can try walking up and down my stairs at home for 10 minutes.
I do not obsess about calorie counting or food journaling, but I could see how it can drive some people crazy when you account for every 10 calories. For people trying to lose weight, maybe they view calorie counting as an indicator of what they cannot eat (deprivation). For someone in weight maintenance mode like myself, I view calorie counting as an invaluable tool to help me make the decision of whether it is worth it or not to eat that cookie today or some other time.
Make Food Journaling Fit Your Style
There are many ways to make food journaling fit your style. For example, I like keeping track of my calories on my heart rate monitor. You could also try:
-use a little notebook dedicated to logging your food.
-writing it down on your planner. That is how I like to track my workouts.
-logging it online. Type in calorie counting in google and you would find all kinds of calorie logs. I prefer SparkPeople or Daily Plate. They have an active support network with their forums and online articles that might help you succeed.
-or even create your own Excel or Access database to fit your needs.
Which ever method you chose for food journaling, be sure it is something that you would have instant access to. The longer the time period from when we ate the food and log it into our food journal, the more likely we are “forget” some bites.
Until next time and thanks for stopping by Small Steps to Health.
Photo by: asithi.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hhhmmm…difficult topic here. I’ve found that the more I think about wieght loss, the more obsessive I get and start hating my body. Food journaling does help towards eating less chocolate Easter eggs, but I generally avoid looking to closely at food other than that I’m getting enough veggies and stop eating when I’m full. Otherwise….I go…CRAZY.
@Spring Girl – That is it. If you cannot help but be obsessive, then food journaling is not the weight loss tool for you. Ahhh… those chocolate easter eggs and the 75% off clearance sticker at my local Rite Aid is a siren that is too deadly for me to listen to.
Thanks for your comment.
Great post. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with food journaling; it got WAY too obsessive for a while so I quit. Now I’m back into it (just pen and paper because when I did it on the computer I found it a little too time-consuming), but I’m rounding up to the nearest 50- makes it work much better.
@Sagan – Love or hate. And yet we often go back to food journaling. It works. Thanks for the comment Sagan!
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