Weight Loss Tool: Food Journal

All the weight control experts recommend keeping a record of
what you eat. Seeing your daily intake in black and white
reality can boost your pride in your self-discipline, gently
confront you with some less than stellar choices you’ve made, or
cast you into a morass of guilt and depression when you face the
epicurean debacle that your food intake represents.

A food diary can become so much more useful for your weight wars
if you use it as a tool for self-exploration and self-discovery.
It allows you to create an oasis of support that anchors you in
a world tossed by competing priorities, overwork, incredible
dietary temptations, and social pressures that all lead to
frustration, inwardly directed anger, diminished self-esteem,
and terminal fatigue.

What do we need to do to create such a tool?

1. Buy a good spiral notebook with lots of pages and a hard
cover – you’re going to keep this for a long time so avoid
anything that’s going to easily fall apart.

2. Enter the date you started your journey: this is the baseline
against which you will compare your entries for the next several
months. Under the date, enter the following information as
accurately as you can make it, as of this very moment:

Age Height Weight Measurements Waist Bust Hips Thighs Upper arms
Clothing size Type of hairstyle Any daily exercise obtained
Today’s primary mood Self-Appraisal (find 3 adjectives for each
area) General appearance Size and shape Personal characteristics
Interpersonal relationships Self-value Family or romantic
relationships Level of self-satisfaction

3. Each day, you are going to enter not only what you ate, but
the thoughts and emotions that accompanied the food. Note: Don’t
become obsessive – it more productive to keep this daily but if
you run out of time and energy now and then, skip it, and get
back to it when you can.

4. It is going to take some thought and memory-searching to
ferret out what you need so find yourself a quiet spot where you
can be alone and quiet. Keep your book there, close at hand, so
you can quickly visit when you want to record anything that
occurs to you.

5. Start teaching yourself to identify the inner landscape that
accompanies your food intake. Focus on the moments before you
ate: How did you feel at the time? Were you (genuinely) hungry -
create a 1 to 10 rating scale for yourself, ranging from “not
really” up to “starved, faint, light-headed.” Were you bored?
Were you anxious and trying to calm yourself down? Were you
angry and stuffing that anger down your own throat? Were you
feeling sorry for yourself? Were you with good friends and just
wanted to be part of the group? Were you just not thinking? Were
you trying to punish yourself -or someone else? You may find
that you ate several times a day for the same reason or that the
triggers to eat differed throughout the day depending upon the
circumstances and people involved at the time.

6. Once you have jotted down everything related to the minutes
before you ate (you may start out with very little to say but as
you warm to this exercise, you will find yourself recording more
and more information), consider how you felt directly
afterwards. Did you feel satiated and serene? Did you feel proud
of your food choices? Were you satisfied with all your
selections? Did you feel stuffed and uncomfortable? Did you feel
guilty about the choices you made? Were you angry with yourself
for giving in to temptation and blowing your diet for the day?
Did the food make you light and energetic or heavy and sleepy?
Did you think about tomorrow morning’s weigh-in with dread or
anticipation?

7. Take a look at the day from the perspective of now (last
thing in the evening or a look back the following morning). Try
to look at your entries as if they belonged to someone else. As
a dispassionate third party, what are your conclusions about the
individual who recorded this data? Is this a self-aware,
consciously motivated person or someone who lives on auto-pilot
with little planning or direction? Is this someone who has
internalized their diet goals and attempts to control their
environment and intake? Is this an individual who merely ‘talks
the talk” but pursues actions that break those verbal rules? Is
this a happy person who is cheerfully continuing the weight
struggle with a sense of humor and self-forgiveness? Or is this
someone who resents the conspiracies of nature which attempt to
load on as much fat as possible, to ward off some improbable
future famine?

8. If you are generally satisfied with the day’s food intake,
give yourself a mental pat on the back and relish the day’s
accomplishment. Promise yourself that one great day proves
forever that you can do it. Identify a small, non-edible, reward
for your self-discipline, inner strength, and personal
commitment. Record your conclusions and bask in the
self-satisfaction you so richly deserve.

9. If you feel disappointed in what you read, remind yourself
that it is only one day in a lifetime of thousands of days.
Forgive yourself and start over. Think about one or two changes
you can make so the following day’s record will not be quite so
disappointing. Guard against swearing that today will be
perfect: you are not going to get there overnight but you will
get there, over time, slowly, one step at a time. You are
learning to take baby steps that will nudge your food intake
into closer alignment with your goals. You are going to
gradually add techniques to your arsenal of weapons to keep
temptation at bay. The simple fact of intake awareness will keep
slowly propelling you towards the goals you have so carefully
set.

10. At the end of your entry, enter your weight for the day – it
will always fluctuate a little bit but will show you how you are
doing when viewed over a period of time.

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