Once you have begun to track your current diet and have a good understanding of what it is that you are doing that may prevent you from making progress on your weight loss journey, it is a good idea to begin a food journal. A food journal is a great way to help you to keep track of recipes you want to prepare and creating meal plans that will help you to stick to a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables. Not only that but it will help you a lot in creating the type of accountability you need to make healthy changes and stick with them.
Your food journal can consist of the same record you took to see what your every day diet is generally like. But it doesn’t have to be. You could also use a different notebook to create your food journal. The food journal is a very useful tool in aiding weight loss and keeping on track with your diet. You want something that will help you to take accountability for what you are putting into your body every day, otherwise it can be difficult to remember that we are staying on track for a reason.
Humans have a tendency to think on a short-term scale and lack the ability to plan for the future. When you are able to plan for future, such as using a food journal to help you to list ingredients and meals you need or would like to try, it can really give you a solid foundation and give you a rare opportunity to see how every single tiny choice you make can be something that either improves your future or prevents you from becoming the person that you want to be.
When you understand the profound consequences of your every action, it will help you to think more in depth about the choices that you have to make on a daily basis. When you don’t understand, it can be nearly impossible to stay on track with a program or
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regimen that provides your body with the healing sustenance that it requires in order to thrive.
It can be so easy to be addicted to bad foods. But by utilizing a food journal, you will be able to see when and where your cravings for certain foods may creep up. For example, you may realize that when you are stressed out or too tired to cook, you begin to crave things that are far more unhealthy for you. But when you are less stressed out or have plenty of time to cook, you find that you are a lot more okay with taking the extra effort to make sure you are eating healthy foods and doing things that will move your health forward.
To best utilize a food journal, you should first and foremost make sure that you are being honest with your entries. Write in it every day, and try to record the foods you are eating directly after eating them. If you want to, you could also make a record of their nutritional value so you have a sense of what you are consuming on any given day, that way you aren’t surprised at the end of the week if you find you have either gained or lost weight.
Next, as you may have considered with the word “journal” involved, you should also record how you felt about the foods you were eating and how you were feeling prior to eating said foods. You should also take some time to consider how you felt after eating these foods, because it can be very telling of a food’s nutritional content and compatibility with your body if you are able to accurately assess the moods you have following a certain food. For example, if you find you are intolerant to nuts or soy, but don’t have an outright allergy, you may find that after consuming such things you feel more irritable or moody or agitated. This is because your body has sensed a threat and you are receiving a stress response in order to deal with the body’s perceived threat. Pay close attention to what works with your body and what probably doesn’t agree. That will give you a chance to really assess what foods work for you in a way that is personal and in depth. This way, you will truly understand why it is not good for you to eat certain things, while others may not be so difficult for you to enjoy.
Overall, having a food journal is a good way to get in touch with yourself and with your food. In most cultures, food is a spiritual experience that should be shared and enjoyed. It is given far more consideration than it is generally in north America. For this reason, it can be a great and healing thing to be able to take comfort in specific foods knowing exactly what type of relationships our bodies will have with those foods when they are put into our bodies.
One of the most important keys in creating a foolproof diet plan is in knowing our bodies and being in touch with ourselves enough that we are making good choices as often as possible. when we are out of synch with ourselves, it can become nearly impossible to do what is best for us. But having a food journal is a great way to help us get our bodies and minds connected and focused on one of the key elements of improving our health and wellbeing.
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