Have you ever kept a Food Journal or Diary where you log down everything you eat during the day, eating hours, meals, calories, dessert, water and drinks etc. ?
The first few days are fantastic
as we are motivated to make change and go ahead with our log…then slowly we
miss an entry, maybe two and before we know it, we’ve stopped!
It takes time to develop a habit,
so be patient and take simply five minutes daily to fill in your food log. DECIDE
(Yes you have this power!) when you will do it, set a reminder and stick to it.
Daily.
It does not have to be beautiful
or perfect, just practical enough to contain facts pertaining to your
consumption and behaviour. That alone
will help you realize what you ARE really putting into your mouth and when.
Every single piece of chocolate, every little almond, every half cup of sweet
tea, every teaspoonful of our favourite namkeen needs to be logged in. This
helps us realize where we are and make decisions on what we can change.
You can only consciously change
what you can clearly see. If it is vague and not defined,
the changes will be haphazard and not defined too, setting us up for failure.
Make a simple checklist with day
and date. An example is given below:
Meal
|
Time
|
I eat or drink
|
Time I awaken:
|
07:00
|
200ml of warm water with honey
and lemon
|
Breakfast:
|
08:30
|
Tea with sugar, aloo parantha,
porridge
|
Snack:
|
11:00
|
Fruit with namkeen and coffee
|
Lunch:
|
13:30
|
Rice with dal and sabzi
|
Snack:
|
16:00
|
Cake with tea
|
Snack:
|
18:00
|
Biscuits with tea
|
Dinner:
|
20:00
|
Dal, veggies and roti
|
After Dinner:
|
22:30
|
2 pieces of chocolate or 3
almonds
|
Time I sleep:
|
23:30
|
-
|
Water intake:
|
constant
|
2,5 ltrs daily
|
Sweets:
|
rare
|
Twice a week
|
Alcohol:
|
rare
|
1 glass of wine a week
|
Smoking:
|
-
|
-
|
Tea/Coffee:
|
-
|
4 daily with sugar
|
EXERCISE:
|
evenings
|
30 minutes walk after dinner
thrice a week
|
Once we have this information, we
can put it all together to see where we can improve, what is working well and
what we are having a tough time with. It could be that we haven’t been able to
add exercise as a constant in our daily routine or we do tend to go overboard
with an extra cup of tea or coffee on most days without realizing it. Maybe we
forget the extra sweet or mithai a colleague offered us…
Putting it down makes us SEE it
and become more AWARE of it.
THEN we can CHANGE!
Start Today! Start Right Away!
Have Fun discovering Yourself!
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