keep a food log

I used to be so good about this. I need to get back into it—at least one month solid! It really does help me lose weight…

I really need to get on top of this. I feel like I’ve been getting lax on my eating habits and I really need to be sure that I’m staying with an acceptable level of calories. I resolve that starting tomorrow I will document everything I eat for at least a week, just to give me a general idea.

I have successfully kept my food log for one week. This does not sound as impressive as I believe it is. What’s even more is that I have been mostly “green” (meaning good) on all my nutrients. Huzzah!

I definitely had a setback with the food logging. I was doing it for a few days very excitedly. Then things came up (there’s always some good excuse, validation) and I got lazy about holding myself accountable.

I picked it back up on Tuesday, and I have been going strong for three days. My goal within a goal is to log faithfully for one whole week.

On NutriMirror, the site I use to track my food intake, they record things like fat, fiber, Vitamin C, Calcium, etc. by percentage and color. Red means you haven’t gotten enough of something good or too much of something bad. Green means you are in the clear. Today I had my first all green day since getting back in the game. It feels wonderful. My body is very pleased with me today.

I find that when I actually write down what I eat, I’m way less likely to snack without thinking. This morning I ate a bunch of of Easter candy and when I wrote it down, I was reminded that said chocolate has caloric value and also fat. Hm, who would have thought! Equally important, when I see a little water ticker I am so motivated to drink my 8 glasses.

I’m using the food log on nutrimirror.com which does all sorts of fancy calculations for you.

I’m starting first with a goal of tracking every day for a week. If I am successful, a month!

I’m using the Twitter tool tweetwhatyoueat.com , since I’m on Twitter all the time anyway. I’m going to try, for the month of January, to heavily limit the white flour and sugar, and just see if that makes a difference in my weight and/or how I feel, and reassess at the end of the month.

Daily food log. I use dailyplate and just haven’t been consistent. Steve Pavlina in his last post said to deliberately do more of the contributing factors to success and to deliberately do less of the contributing factors to failure. Now that TDP has mobile working, It will be a slam dunk.

Yeah me! I did a log for the week. Missed a few dinners, but got most of it down. I even made a point of bringing it to my appt. to discuss – which I’ve actively dodged for months. yeah me again!

I use a small spiral-bound notepad and a pen that’s in the kitchen. Every time I eat something, I write down the time, name, and calories. Sometimes I tally up the calories for each day.