Keeping a Weight-Loss Journal

You've probably heard it before, "keep track of your eating habits," but does it really help you achieve your weight-loss goals? In a word, yes! Keeping track of your food intake will greatly aid you in achieving your weight-loss goals. Keeping a weight-loss journal goes beyond just keeping track of your eating habits though. In your weight-loss journal you should have 4 entries each day: food intake, exercise, how you feel and "I love me." Keeping a journal is one of the weight-loss secrets we personal trainers use with our clients to get the most efficiency out of their programs. Be honest with yourself in your journal. The only times someone other than you may view the journal would be if you're not seeing weight-loss results from your program. In which case your personal trainer may ask to view the journal to see where your program may need to be changed; or your personal physician may view it to get a clearer picture of what is going on in your body. If you can't be honest with yourself then you'll not be honest in the journal - then it will be much harder to figure out where holes in your weight-loss program might be.

Food Intake/Exercise Entries: This will help you in keeping track of how effective your program is. You see, when you eat, some calories are used immediately as energy while the rest is stored as fats. You burn calories through exercise, but also through normal body functions such as breathing and digestion. Make sure you enter everything you eat or drink - don't forget the extras like exactly how much sugar you put in your coffee or how much mayo was on your sandwich. I know it sounds like a lot, but not if you break it down into small parts throughout the day. I usually suggest getting a small spiral notebook you can keep on you throughout the day. This way you can enter what you ate/drank right after breakfast. As soon as you get off the treadmill, enter the mode/program, intensity, calories burned, etc. At the end of the day you can visit web pages such as Calorie Counter or My Calorie Counter to determine exactly how many calories you took in that day. Then visit such web pages as ProHealth or WebMd Fit-o-Meter to determine how many calories were burned in random exercises. Ideally, there should be about a 500-calorie deficit - this means you should be eating/drinking about 500 calories less than you are burning in order to lose weight.

How You Feel Entries: Why would it matter how you feel? Well some trainers believe your metabolism slows with your emotions and vice versa. When you're feeling bad you might turn to emotional eating - thus slowing the weight-loss goals down. Furthermore, if you notice you're feeling tired or sick regularly there might be something missing from your diet, or you might not be drinking enough water, or the exercise program might be too difficult for your activity level. Keeping track of how you feel will make a big impact in how closely you stick to your weight-loss regimen.

"I Love Me.." Entries: Many people begin an exercise/weight-loss program because they look in the mirror and hate what they see. Sadly, as a society we tend to focus on the negative. This makes it so that no matter our over all goals, we generally find something else about ourselves that we don't like. Furthermore, the more we dislike something, the more we will self-sabotage. I've seen it time and time again with clients. They'll be doing great, getting closer and closer to their goals, when suddenly they'll begin binge eating - throwing the whole program off track. This comes back to how they feel - their emotions. They feel like a failure. Generally there are other factors in their life pushing the feeling. In my experience, not only should one try to achieve their weight-loss goals for image but also for health. More, they should learn to love themselves as a person and focus less and less on the negative. In my client's journals, each day they must head their entries with one thing they love about themselves that day. If it's a bad day it might only be they love the polish on their pinky toe! But, over time, they'll grow to recognize what is good and beautiful within - and in a very short time, that beauty will ooze out to the surface, making achieving any goal very easy!