Home
>
Weight Loss
>
Weight Control Tool: A Food Journal

Weight Control Tool: A Food Journal

All the weight control experts recommend keeping a record of what you eat. Seeing your daily intake in black and white reality can boost your pride in your self-discipline, gently confront you with some less than stellar choices you've made, or cast you into a morass of guilt and depression when you face the epicurean debacle that your food intake represents.

A food diary can become so much more useful for your weight wars if you use it as a tool for self-exploration and self-discovery. It allows you to create an oasis of support that anchors you in a world tossed by competing priorities, overwork, incredible dietary temptations, and social pressures that all lead to frustration, inwardly directed anger, diminished self-esteem, and terminal fatigue.

What do we need to do to create such a tool?

1. Buy a good spiral notebook with lots of pages and a hard cover - you're going to keep this for a long time so avoid anything that's going to easily fall apart.

2. Enter the date you started your journey: this is the baseline against which you will compare your entries for the next several months. Under the date, enter the following information as accurately as you can make it, as of this very moment:

Age Height Weight Measurements

Waist

Bust

Hips

Thighs

Upper arms

Clothing size

Type of hairstyle

Any daily exercise obtained

Today's primary mood

Self-Appraisal (find 3 adjectives for each area)

General appearance

Size and shape

Personal characteristics

Interpersonal relationships

Self-value

Family or romantic relationships

Level of self-satisfaction

3. Each day, you are going to enter not only what you ate, but the thoughts and emotions that accompanied the food. Note: Don't become obsessive - it more productive to keep this daily but if you run out of time and energy now and then, skip it, and get back to it when you can.

4. It is going to take some thought and memory-searching to ferret out what you need so find yourself a quiet spot where you can be alone and quiet. Keep your book there, close at hand, so you can quickly visit when you want to record anything that occurs to you.

5. Start teaching yourself to identify the inner landscape that accompanies your food intake. Focus on the moments before you ate: How did you feel at the time? Were you (genuinely) hungry - create a 1 to 10 rating scale for yourself, ranging from "not really" up to "starved, faint, light-headed." Were you bored? Were you anxious and trying to calm yourself down? Were you angry and stuffing that anger down your own throat? Were you feeling sorry for yourself? Were you with good friends and just wanted to be part of the group? Were you just not thinking? Were you trying to punish yourself -or someone else? You may find that you ate several times a day for the same reason or that the triggers to eat differed throughout the day depending upon the circumstances and people involved at the time.

6. Once you have jotted down everything related to the minutes before you ate (you may start out with very little to say but as you warm to this exercise, you will find yourself recording more and more information), consider how you felt directly afterwards. Did you feel satiated and serene? Did you feel proud of your food choices? Were you satisfied with all your selections? Did you feel stuffed and uncomfortable? Did you feel guilty about the choices you made? Were you angry with yourself for giving in to temptation and blowing your diet for the day? Did the food make you light and energetic or heavy and sleepy? Did you think about tomorrow morning's weigh-in with dread or anticipation?

7. Take a look at the day from the perspective of now (last thing in the evening or a look back the following morning). Try to look at your entries as if they belonged to someone else. As a dispassionate third party, what are your conclusions about the individual who recorded this data? Is this a self-aware, consciously motivated person or someone who lives on auto-pilot with little planning or direction? Is this someone who has internalized their diet goals and attempts to control their environment and intake? Is this an individual who merely 'talks the talk" but pursues actions that break those verbal rules? Is this a happy person who is cheerfully continuing the weight struggle with a sense of humor and self-forgiveness? Or is this someone who resents the conspiracies of nature which attempt to load on as much fat as possible, to ward off some improbable future famine?

8. If you are generally satisfied with the day's food intake, give yourself a mental pat on the back and relish the day's accomplishment. Promise yourself that one great day proves forever that you can do it. Identify a small, non-edible, reward for your self-discipline, inner strength, and personal commitment. Record your conclusions and bask in the self-satisfaction you so richly deserve.

9. If you feel disappointed in what you read, remind yourself that it is only one day in a lifetime of thousands of days. Forgive yourself and start over. Think about one or two changes you can make so the following day's record will not be quite so disappointing. Guard against swearing that today will be perfect: you are not going to get there overnight but you will get there, over time, slowly, one step at a time. You are learning to take baby steps that will nudge your food intake into closer alignment with your goals. You are going to gradually add techniques to your arsenal of weapons to keep temptation at bay. The simple fact of intake awareness will keep slowly propelling you towards the goals you have so carefully set.

10. At the end of your entry, enter your weight for the day - it will always fluctuate a little bit but will show you how you are doing when viewed over a period of time.

Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently completed a psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an Attitude: A Weight Loss Workbook. She can be reached at http://www.dietwithanattitude.com

cleaning team near Mundelein ..

In The News:

Chattee Chat and GiMe Chat exposed intimate conversations and photos, revealing users spent up to $18,000 on AI companions before the breach.

New Instagram parental controls allow families to manage teen screen time and content limits through the Family Center with stricter safety settings.

Third-party security breach at Discord exposes sensitive user information including government IDs, highlighting cybersecurity risks from external service providers.

Survey of 1,000 students shows teens using AI for personal relationships while two-thirds of parents remain unaware of their children's AI usage.

Cybersecurity experts warn about a ShadowLeak vulnerability that weaponized ChatGPT's Deep Research agent to steal personal data from Gmail accounts through hidden commands.

Tesla's Full Self-Driving system faces federal investigation following 58 reports of crashes, with six vehicles running red lights before colliding with other cars.

The Fox News AI Newsletter brings you the latest developments on artificial intelligence, with news on OpenAI moving to soon allow erotica for adult users.

Eric Schmidt alerts that hackers can reverse-engineer AI models to bypass safety measures, citing examples like the jailbroken ChatGPT variant called DAN.

Cybercriminals exploit Microsoft Teams through impersonation, malicious links and fake profiles to gather intel and deliver ransomware to personal and work devices.

Google, Dior, Allianz and dozens of other companies lost sensitive customer data in Salesforce-related breaches affecting millions of records across multiple sectors.

Apple launches iOS 26 with new Preview app that combines document editing, PDF annotation and scanning features into one streamlined iPhone experience.

New AI road monitoring system uses sensor-embedded fabric to predict infrastructure problems, potentially reducing maintenance costs and traffic disruptions for cities.

Holiday charity scams target retirees through lookalike organization names, untraceable payment requests, and data broker information to steal donations.

The Federal Trade Commission says criminals are posing as IRS agents, law enforcement officers or other officials, often over the phone or online, to steal thousands of dollars at a time.

AI phishing scams now use voice cloning and deepfake technology to trick victims, but Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson reveals warning signs to watch for.

Inversion Space unveils Arc, a reusable reentry vehicle that can deliver up to 500 pounds of cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth in under an hour.

Red flags like processing fees, urgent countdowns and requests for full Social Security numbers expose fraudulent settlement sites targeting consumers.

Comprehensive analysis of Google Maps, Waze and Apple Maps examines usability, routing accuracy, data handling and features across the top navigation platforms.

Expert analysis reveals whether wired Ethernet or wireless Wi-Fi connections are safer for home internet use, plus practical steps to secure your network from attackers.

Australian construction robot Charlotte uses sand, crushed brick and recycled glass to 3D print fireproof, floodproof homes with reduced carbon footprint.

Cybercriminals are using fake invitation emails to trick recipients into downloading malware and stealing personal information and data.

Flying drones could help retailers fight a 93% increase in theft rates as Flock Safety promotes airborne security systems to track suspects and deter crime.

The Fox News Artificial Intelligence Newsletter brings you the latest news on the emerging technology every Saturday, highlighting top stories.

Hacker group Radiant stole data from 8,000 children at Kido nursery chain, demanding ransom and directly contacting parents with intimidation tactics.

As 18 states implement bell-to-bell cell phone bans, creative students use Google Docs, iMessage on MacBooks and Post-It notes to stay connected in class.