Journal Your Food Intake

Let's start with journaling your food intake. People are often amazed when they begin this process. Most are under the impression that they eat properly, that they balance their nutrition and that it isn't necessary to pay attention to the calories they consume every day. Here's what using journaling as a weight loss tool can accomplish:

Make you aware of what you are actually eating (those little tidbits add up fast)

Hold you accountable to yourself

Help you make better, conscious food choices (instead of grabbing whatever's convenient out of the office vending machine)

Track your water intake (as silly as this sounds, it's extremely important)

Help you plan meals and snacks in advance

Keep you on track toward your personal goals (whether that's losing weight, or just choosing to live a healthier lifestyle)

Did you know that the average woman only needs about 1200-1600 calories a day? Men, on the other hand need about 1800-2200 per day, as do teenagers. However, the average American consumes many more calories than their body actually needs, and they don't pay attention to the kinds of calories they ingest.

Here are both a warning, and a challenge. A lot of people come to the conclusion, that if eating 1200 calories a day will help them lose weight; wouldn't eating fewer calories make you lose weight faster? The answer to that, is no.

Eating fewer than 1000 calories a day will actually produce the opposite results that you desire. When a person starts to eat less than 1000 calories in a day your body goes into "starvation mode".

First, your body will start holding onto every bit of nutrition it receives, storing extra as fat and adding to your weight issue. Secondly, feeling it isn't getting enough fuel, your body will start consuming its own lean muscle tissue, a process called catabolism, in order to feed it. This causes more problems because you not only lose your important lean muscle tissue which burns fat faster, you can also damage important organs in your body that consist of lean muscle.

Here's The Challenge

Journal your food and beverage intake for one week, without changing any of your normal habits. At the end the week, add up your total calorie and water consumption for each day and compare it to what the average person should be consuming. Also take this time to pay attention to the kinds of foods you chose and when during the day you tended to have the least amount of control over what you ate. This will be eye-opening to say the least.

A Tool, Not a Weapon

What I mean by that is, don't beat yourself up over your intake for the last week. Instead think of it as your personal weight loss tool to give you insight into what kinds of habits you have now, and what you can do to change them for the better. Journaling for weight loss is a very effective tool that can make a huge difference in your health. Start small with new changes, and soon you will be on the way to a healthy life.