Food Journal

For the record when you are a person who has to battle to maintain a certain weight and losing weight becomes a war losing weight should be a serious warning sign. I knew this, but didn't heed it.

Over the past year I lost weight at a slow, but steady rate. There were two reasons for this, one being a mass was growing near my stomach and made it uncomfortable when I ate more than just a little at a time. By the time my doctor discovered that I had cancer I was only able to eat or drink one cup (8 ounces) at a time.

Most people taking chemotherapy lose weight. I, on the other hand, started gaining weight as the masses shrank. The more the mass shrank the more I was able to eat at any one time. So, once again, I was gaining weight not losing or even maintaining.

Something that has probably helped the gain is that because anemia is a real problem for people on chemo I added beef and liver back into my diet. I reduced our consumption of fatty and red meats back when my husband developed problems with his cardiovascular system.

I'll make a confession here, I love liver. I missed it. So the idea that I had a good reason to eat it was cause for celebration on my part. So adding liver and beef to the ability to consume more food at a time meant my weight started its upward climb. I drew the line at my last weigh in and decided it was time to take action.

The single most effective tool I've found in my life long battle with weight is keeping a food journal. As soon as I take the marble back composition book I use out and start entering everything I eat my weight begins to decrease.

I know all the articles about using this tool tell you to not make any changes for the first couple of weeks just write down what you eat. Well, I can no more do that than I can fly.
As soon as I begin writing down what I eat I begin censoring it. Do I really want to put down on paper that I ate my whole day's worth of calories, fat and carbs by ordering a hamburger and fries? Hah! Suddenly I'm ordering a junior burger, no fries and tea.

As for cheese cake while I adore it and it makes my mouth water just to think about a slice of Cheesecake Factory's Original Cheesecake. The counts on that make it a dessert to carefully divide and share or take home for another day. It's an excellent dessert if you cut it into bites and freeze it. One piece isn't going to ruin your day and you don't feel completely mistreated by having to cut back on the goodies.

So the simple act of writing down everything I eat and recording data such as calories, fat and carb grams reverses my upward trend and starts it back down again.

Am I ever going to be a "normal" weight again? I don't think so. I'm not even worried about that. As one who was anorexic in my teens and twenties I know there are worse and far more dangerous things to be than overweight.

But my journal will at least help me maintain a weight that keeps my various blood tests within reasonable bounds and that is good enough.