Keeping Track

When I was in school I never used to take notes. Maybe I would jot something down if a teacher said outright, “This is going to be on the test.” But for the most part I didn’t take notes because I never quite had the patience to do it. These days, I try to take notes as my children do or say cute things. Still, even with the love I have for them, I have hard time sitting and writing those things down.

So when I hear that one of the most effective strategies to weight loss and maintenance is keeping a food journal, I’m less than excited. I start for a few days maybe, then give up because it’s tedious work and not my first priority. However, if I am serious about losing weight, if I’m serious about eating healthy, and if I’m determined to show my children how to eat healthy, I really do need to make an effort.

And so I have. For the past several weeks I have been keeping a nutrition log by daily listing everything I have eaten. This log includes the amount of calories, fat, carbohydrate, and protein, as well as other nutrition information. Making it easier is a website that calculates the numbers for me, and even provides the nutritional values for common foods.

At the end of each day, the program gives me a nutrition report. This report shows how I have performed and if I have met my daily goals. I can also access a chart that shows my input through time. It’s as easy as it will get for me to journal my food without someone doing it for me.

An amazing thing has happened since I have begun. Logging has helped me stay on track. Interestingly, there are days when I feel that I have overeaten, but when I log my numbers I find I’ve fallen short. Likewise, there are days when I think I am under the amount of daily calories only to find that I am going over. I also have found that I generally need to boost my protein intake and decrease my carbs. It’s no longer easy to sneak in that extra cup of rice!

Keeping track in my head, as I used to do, isn’t always accurate. And there is something powerful about looking back over your day or week or month and seeing your effort looking back at you in a report. I haven’t felt so satisfied since my last school report card.