If you haven’t read last week’s post, you can do so here: Get Off the Hamster Wheel Tip #7
We are down to the last few tips, and you know, I really struggled with this week’s and next week’s tips, trying to figure out which should happen first. It came down to this:
Which small action do I have the hardest time doing? And that’s how I picked Tip #8 which is:
Tip #8 WRITE IT DOWN
Tip #8 WRITE IT DOWNI know you’ve probably heard this hundreds of times before, and that’s great, you’ve probably heard all the other 7 tips as well. The point of change comes not by KNOWING what you need to do but by DOING it.
The task here is to start a food journal.
Write down every bit of food that goes into your mouth. What I find is most helpful is if I write down my mood/hunger level before and after I eat as well, which can help me tune into my hunger cues, if I’m really eating for hunger or to satisfy another need, as we talked about last week.
The simple task of taking the time to write down what you eat and take the few seconds to actually see it all on paper can bring huge amounts of awareness to your eating activity. Heck, this action alone has stopped me more than once from eating anything else, just because I didn’t want to have to write it down, to see it on paper, because when you write something down it becomes real. Have you ever noticed that? There are certain things in life you don’t want to say out loud or write down because then you are faced with the reality of them, sometimes we think that if the thoughts stay inside our heads, they never happened.
Commit to having fanatical levels of integrity on this one.
Why?
Because when you start being honest with yourself in this one area, you can’t help but have it spill over into other areas of your life as well. Do not cheat yourself, do not lie to yourself.
Make this commitment to yourself that for at least the next two weeks you will start writing down everything you eat and your mood and hunger level before and after.
You do NOT need to do this the rest of your life, I don’t want this to become an obsessive habit (and boy have I been there with this one, I’d even get anxious that I’d forget to write it down because I didn’t have my notebook with me!). What you are doing is bringing awareness to your actions. If you’ve stalled for awhile on your progress, go back to doing this and see what you find out.
I was perusing TJ Maxx awhile back and found a great journal. I really like the structure of having things laid out for me and this week, I commit to using it, consistently. That’s the key, being consistent in your actions. So, I’ll take it with me, leave it in the kitchen, etc.
If you’d rather not hunt every TJ Maxx around, you can just get it here on Amazon as well: Buy the Ultimate Diet Log Here.
There are several other methods, I know a lot of people like FitDay, My Fitness Pal and Spark People, and I’m cool with those too, heck, whatever floats your boat! I don’t want you to get caught up in the trap of counting calories, though, and these sites do that. That’s why I’m a fan of simply putting it on paper, worry about the numbers later!
So now, with all those great habits you’ve put into place: drinking more water, eating undisturbed, having vegetables at every meal and focusing your diet on whole foods, Eating exactly what you want, stopping eating when your satisfied, eating when you’re hungry – not to meet an emotional need…. now you can put all of those into reality by putting them all down on paper. This simple activity solidifies your activities into reality and makes them become habit.
If you haven’t read the other tips in the series, they are meant to be read in order. Start here:
The 9 Things you need to do to change your habits and get off the hamster wheel!