The Top 10 Benefits of Recording What You Eat in a Food Diary
by Jacqueline D. Stanley
http://www.weightlossmoms.com/nutrition/the-top-10-benefits-of-recording-what-you-eat-in-a-food-diary.html
1. Allows you to monitor your caloric intake. – Losing weight is a simple equation – take in fewer calories than you expend. Monitoring your caloric intake is the first step in lowering it.
2. Encourages you to focus on your food choices. – More often than not we overeat because we are focusing on something other than what we are eating. Writing down what you eat in a food diary forces you to focus on what you are doing.
3. Provides a record you can share with your health care provider (or PIO Facilitator) Your health care provider can look at your food diary and provide insight and information on what you can do to eat healthier. Also, what you are eating may be impacting your health in other ways.
4. Helps you control the urge to binge. – Knowing you are going to have to write down what you eat can stop you from reaching for the second helping of potato chips.
5. Allows you to track your progress. – A food diary can serve as evidence of how far you have come in this journey. It also feels great to look back and see you are eating better today than you did days, weeks or years ago.
6. Encourages mindful eating. – Writing down what you eat encourages you to think about what you are eating. The more you think, the less and better you eat.
7. Creates a means of evaluating the connection between what you eat and how you feel. – You can use a food diary to examine the circumstances and feelings which trigger overeating. Once you identify the causes you can begin doing something about them.
8. Helps you be sure you are getting enough of each food group. -- It is important to eat a balanced diet. A food diary can provide clues as to what foods you have been neglecting and need to add to your diet.
9. Assists you in acknowledging the reality of how much you eat. –
Keeping a food diary will help you confront the truth about how much you eat. Once you stop kidding yourself about how much you eat, you can begin making the necessary changes.
10. Reinforces your commitment to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. – Each time you make an entry in your food diary you are expressing your intention and desire to do what needs to be done in order to live well.
The Benefits of Keeping a Food Log By Curtis Penner
Do the benefits of keeping a food log outweigh the time and effort of recording every little morsel of food and sip of liquid that passes your lips? I think it does and here's why...
Using a food log...
• Makes you more conscious of when and what you consume on a daily basis. It's easy to account for the big stuff - that piece of cheese cake, or that big turkey dinner. But it's often the little things that get you, like...
o The cream and sugar in your daily coffee.
o The butter on your morning bagel.
o The handful of peanuts you mindlessly grabbed while sitting in front of the T.V..
• Allows you to gain an understanding of just how much food you need to consume to reach your weight loss goals. If you keep track of your weight along with your food intake, you'll soon notice whether your weight is trending up, down or staying the same. If you keep an accurate food log, you can make small adjustments to your caloric intake to help you achieve your goals.
• Allows you to accurately calculate how many calories you eat. When you combine your food log with a nutrition software, you can quickly and easily find out how many calories you consume...on a meal-to-meal, day-to-day basis. Doing this is perhaps the quickest way to reach your weight loss goals.
• Reveals patterns in your eating habits. Do you eat more at night than during the day? Do you eat when more or less when stressed? Do most of your calories come from carbohydrates? From protein? Or from fat? Are you eating at regular intervals throughout the day or do you eat fewer but bigger meals? Keeping a food log can help you answer these questions. Just being more conscious about what you eat, when you eat, why you eat and how much you eat can make all the difference in the world.
• Keeps you focused on your goal. What you focus on becomes your reality. If you are focused on eating balanced, healthy meals you will tend to eat that way more often than not.
Most people mindlessly go through their day, grabbing food whenever they feel hungry. They give very little thought to what goes in their body.
Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of keeping a food log is what happens when you use it as a planning tool. Sit down with your food log at the beginning of every week and plan what you want to eat at each meal and snack. Doing this will help you control the amount of calories you consume and stay focused on healthy eating.
Will you stick to the plan 100% of the time. Unlikely. But what you'll find is by planning your meals, your eating habits will improve quickly and dramatically.
Curtis Penner is the author of Taking It Off.
1500 Calorie Diet Plan
by Lori at http://www.womenandweight.com/1500-calorie-diet-plan
I created this plan to help you lose weight while still having a balanced and healthy diet. The diet plan allows for a significant amount of fiber to help you feel satisfied. Fiber-rich foods not only help to fill you up but with good choices these foods will allow you to eat a greater amount than you might otherwise with lower fiber, more energy-dense (higher calorie) foods.
Do keep track of your calories. This plan is just a guideline. The actual calories in each of the food choices can vary considerably.
1500 Calorie Diet Plan
Servings/day
Fruit (3-4 svgs) Choose from:
4 oz. juice (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup sliced/chopped cooked or raw fruit
(fresh, frozen, or canned.)
1 whole medium piece of fruit
1/4 cup dried fruit
Vegetables (3-4 svgs) Choose from:
4-6 oz. juice (1/2 – 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup fresh non-leafy vegetables
1/2 cup cooked vegetables
1 cup fresh leafy greens
NOTE: Choose at least 5 total fruit and vegetable servings a day for a healthier diet. Have no more
than 1 serving of fruit or vegetable juice per day
Whole grain breads and cereals (preferred) (3-6 svgs) Choose from:
1/2 cup high fiber dry cereal (about 80-100 calories with
4+ grams of fiber)
1 slice high fiber bread with at least 2 grams of fiber
~1/2 cup whole grain crackers (less than 100 calories with 2+
grams fiber)
1/2 cup cooked whole grain (brown rice, pasta, cereal)
1 SMALL whole grain muffin (about 150-160 calories providing 1/2 svg whole grain plus 1/2 serving
fat)
Refined grain breads and cereals such as white bread (2-3 svgs)
Lean meat, fish, poultry, eggs, or beans (2-3 svgs)
Choose from:
2 oz. lean meat, fish, or poultry
1/2 cup cooked dried beans (legumes)
1 egg
1 Tbsp. peanut butter or other nut butter
Low fat and nonfat dairy (3-4 svgs) Choose from:
1 cup skim milk or 1% milk
1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese
1-2 oz. light cheese
1 cup low fat yogurt
Fats (1-4 svgs) Choose from:
1 tsp. healthy oil (such as olive oil or canola) or soft margarine
1 tsp. regular mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. low-fat mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. regular salad dressing
2 Tbsp. light salad dressing
1/2 cup ice cream
Nuts and Seeds Choose from:
1/2 oz. nuts
1 Tbsp. seeds
Sweets/other (1-3 svgs) Choose from:
1 tsp. maple syrup, sugar, jelly, or jam
1 gingersnap
1 vanilla wafer
PHOTOS: Blogcritics.org, buzzle.com
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