An unexpected bonus of food logging

I've been logging my daily food intake throughout my WLs journey. After I reached my weight goal, I drifted away from that practice, but unpleasant surprises from a recent blood test and checkup pushed me back into it. I soon realized that I was going to have to start paying attention to both my macro and micronutrients, so I created my own summary spreadsheet to record calories, protein, carbs, fiber, fat, saturated fat, sodium, calcium, potassium and magnesium intake, hoping that a pattern might emerge and show me where I needed to make changes.

I did that for a month, just gathering data, not analyzing it. Since I could analyze an amoeba to death, I had to order myself not to start playing with the numbers until I had a whole page of them.

When entering yesterday's numbers into my spreadsheet yesterday, I noticed something very interesting. ALL of my nutrient values had come down or gone up much closer to the goals I had set for them without me even consciously trying to change or improve them. I am not exaggerating when I say that it took absolutely NO effort or thought on my part other than logging my intake and tracking my nutrients. And as a side benefit, during that month of data gathering, I lost 3.6 pounds!

I've said this many times before and I have to say it again now: logging your food intake can be a big help in achieving your weight loss and health goals. Even if you don't intend to do it for the rest of your life, try it for a week or a month. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Jean

Wow that's great! And so true, the study you reference in bandwagon about those who logged food and exercise lost 3 times as much weight (I think that was the right number) than those that didn't log is something that has really stuck with me. Even though I have strayed from many of the band rules ( that I followed so well after reading your book) I have not missed a day of logging in 130 days (would be 144 days but since I had nothing to log on surgery day, my count started over).


Thanks for sharing!

i so agree with you, i was logging everything i ate into my food journal. unfortunally i stoped and that when the weight loss slowed down :/ after reading ur post i pulled out my notebook and here i am writing everything starting this morning :) have to take advice from the succesful people on here :)

Thank you

I always do better when I log my food and exercise.  I think subconsciously I eat better and work out more when I am keeping a log, because I don't want to look bad on paper.  LOL  Silly, I know, but that's how my mind works.

Thanks for the reminder, Jean.  I need to start keeping a log again.