Why Journal?

Studies have shown that effectively changing our lifestyle involves journaling out food, exercise and daily thoughts.

It does not have to be anything fancy, though; the important thing is that you allow yourself freedom to express your thoughts and feelings about anything that is happening in your life right now. Remember, any form of self-monitoring will help you manage your total well being better.

Emotional eaters need to expand the food journal to include feelings on why they eat a particular food item, because it's not only important to track how much you eat, but also why and when you eat it. Identifying the feelings and issues that trigger and accompany overeating is an important step toward developing healthy eating patterns.

Keeping up with your journal is a great motivator and helps you be aware of exactly what and how much you are eating.

Paying attention to detail

Change! To some it’s down right scary and changing our daily lifestyle habits can be a daunting task if you don’t know where to begin. The secret to permanent change involves an important step called awareness.

You now know why journaling is an important tool in changing your habits but simply writing it down is not enough. You must become aware of your habits; ask yourself what is this habit exactly? How is this bad habit or group of bad habits affecting you? How is this habit affecting others? For example, smoking often has negative effects on others as well as on you.

What I want you to do is track your food, movement and feelings on paper for one week and make no changes to your diet or movement habits. Once you have one weeks worth of journal entries you will think of one small change you want to incorporate into your lifestyle according to your journal entries.

Remember the more detailed you are at the beginning stages of the change process it will greatly help you to change your habits more effectively and permanently!

Nelson Roque is a Fitness/Body Mind Weight Loss Mentor who has lost 75 lbs; he is also a sports nutritionist who focuses on total body well-being.

For more information please visit the following website for daily inspiration and motivation to get your journey of a healthy active lifestyle started.

http://www.theweightingroom.com

If you have any questions, concerns or need help with getting motivated / inspired you may contact me at [email protected]

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