Today, Day 5 of Renew You, we are taking a deeper dive into the food journaling portion of our 24 Hour Plan Worksheet. As we learned from Tom’s blog post yesterday, Mindset is THE key element to achieving weight loss and maintaining a healthy and fit lifestyle that will be sustainable for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. We have to shut down that “stinkin thinkin” and learn to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones that will help you reach your goals.
Food Journaling Resources
Another really important piece of the equation is food journaling, and your daily plan review. I’m not going to recreate the wheel on this one, since this podcast from Corinne Crabtree of Losing 100 Lbs with Phit-n-Phat sums up what I would say perfectly: Episode 10: Why You Should Keep a Food Journal To Lose Weight. Give it a listen!
Here are a few key takeaways for reasons you should keep a daily food journal:
- It will help you identify your food triggers
- It will help you recognize patterns with your eating
- It will help you realize some diet mistakes (and combining the mindset work you are also doing, you will learn to use it as a way to improve, not beat yourself up.)
- It’s gets things out of your head so you don’t have to rely on your memory
- It will tell you what to tweak if you are not having progress or have reached a plateau
- It will let you know what works for you by reviewing weeks that went well
- In a nutshell, it becomes your blueprint on your health and fitness journey
Remember, the key is to be honest with yourself. That is the only way you will learn. Do not write out a “perfect” plan and do not beat yourself up. PROGRESS… not perfection, is the goal.
The Weekend is Coming!
Since we are talking about beating ourselves up and worrying, we are coming into the weekend, and some in the Small Scale Life Facebook Group have been expressing some “jitters” about the weekend coming up. What if we fall off our plan? How will we resist temptation? What if our willpower, discipline and motivation fail them?
From my own experience, I have used the weekends as an excuse to let up and let loose. I have been on diets and gone to town on pizza, beer and other delicious yummies, and TRUST ME: I do like my delicious yummies! Weekends are a great opportunity to smash a lot of food and feel really guilty on Monday.
Deep breath! It’s going to be okay, folks. We have 52 weeks this year, and that means we will be facing weekends often (thank God)! Because of this, we are going to get a lot of practice dealing with weekends, and Julie and I want all of us to be successful.
Julie recommends listening to Corinne Crabtree from phit-n-phat.com who did a podcast about Weekends. It is Episode 007: Weekends (I wonder if she used James Bond – Agent 007 – music for an opener…..I would)! Just for fun, I added the theme song below….”I’ll take my Bulletproof Coffee shaken, not stirred!”
Remember: we are all in this together! Learn, do, grow and be a little better everyday. Use the 24 Hour Plan and Food Journaling to help identify those triggers and patterns. Good luck, Lifers!