Tracking Your Food: The Proper Way To Do It

By Raul Bryant


When you begin a diet just about the most often heard pieces of advice is to keep a food log in which you write down every thing you eat during the day. Keeping your food record not only helps you see clearly what you are eating, it helps you see what you are not eating. One example is that, after tracking your food for a few days you might realize that you are consuming far too many sugars and unhealthy fats without nearly enough organic nutrients. Writing all of it down will help you see exactly which parts of your diet program really need to change as well as how much exercise you are going to need to do to make sure that you keep your caloric intake in check.

But what if you've been writing everything down and still aren't losing weight? There is a correct way and a completely wrong way to monitor your food. A food record isn't merely a list of what exactly you've eaten during the day. You need to write down other crucial pieces of information too. Here are some of the points you need to do to be more effective at food tracking.

Be as specific as possible whenever you write down what you consume. It isn't sufficient to list "salad" in your food journal. The correct way to do it is always to write down all of the ingredients in the salad as well as the kind of dressing that is used. You ought to include the amount of the food you take in. "Cereal" is not beneficial, but "one cup Shredded Wheat" will be. 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 you're feeding on stuff. This will allow you to figure out what times of day you feel the most hungry, when you usually reach for snacks and then you can figure out how to deal with those times. After a day or two you could notice that, although you eat lunch at the same time each day, you still feel hungry an hour or so later. You should also be able to discover whether or not you happen to be eating because you're bored. This is significant because those are times that you can select other things to fill your time with than food.



Record your mood when you eat. This makes it possible to pinpoint when you use foods to help soothe emotional issues. This will also show you whether or not you gravitate for certain foods based on your mood. There a wide range of people who look for junk food when they feel angry or depressed and are quite as likely to choose healthy things when they feel happy and content. Paying attention to what you reach for if you find yourself upset just might help you stock similar but more healthy 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).




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