What a food diary can do (Read 1156 times)

I weighed myself today: 124. I was 133 in January, when I decided I needed to become more conscious about my food choices. Look what consciousness does! 133 was a healthy weight for me (I'm 5'6.5"), so I didn't really set out to lose weight (I was kind of hoping for 125), but that has obviously been the effect. The last time I regularly weighed this much was 1992, when I was 23 and running over 30 mpw. By 1996, no longer running regularly, I had levelled out at 130, give or take. From 2002-2006, I was either pregnant or nursing or both. By the time my second daughter weaned, I was around 125, but over the course of the next year, it crept up to the 135 territory, although I had also started running again, albeit limited mileage. I guess I'd gotten too used to the calorie requirements of pregnancy and nursing! I'm turning 40 this year, and despite the fact that 135 was a fine weight for me according to the charts, I really didn't like the trend of the last year and felt that potential for middle age spread looming. So I started a food diary to help me be more mindful of my eating. Talk about eye-opening! By far the hugest effect of the food diary has been on my breakfast habits. I will probably never eat a full-sized bagel with cream cheese again! I've also cut out a lot of unnecessary snacking, and become much more careful about portion size. But that's really it. It's barely noticeable, but what a difference it's made. I know these are small numbers I'm talking about, and that others have made much more significant changes. From them I have drawn a lot of inspriation. I'm not sure how long I'll keep up the food diary. In a way I feel like I got everything I needed out of the exercise within the first week, but keeping it up so far has really been good to reinforce those habits. Although, I might have that bagel with cream cheese after the half marathon I'm hoping for this fall.

Anne, I couldn't agree more. When I got fed up with being fat, I started my running program. i'd done this before, and I knew what I had to do to get back into running shape. However, for the first time, I kept a journal of my calorie intake. being conscious of what I was eating, and how much, was pivotal in my loss of 40 pounds. It's so simple, yet so essential...

This is a nice adjunct to the food diary: http://www.nutritiondata.com

Can you give us a glimpse into your food diary?

Hm, that I don't know how to do. It's on SparkPeople, but I haven't poked around on that site much beyond food tracking. And I'm not sure I'd like to show anyone what I resorted to on our roadtrip this weekend! I like and don't like SparkPeople. I have been pretty impressed with the amount of food they have loaded in there with detailed info. I always knew I should be taking a calcium supplement, but seeing it in black and white like that finally kicked me into action. Quantity of data isn't everything, though, since we don't eat out much, and therefore a lot of their large database is irrelevant. I do find a lot of the features of the site overwhelming and unnecessarily fussy, and I have to figure out how to get unsubscribed from all of their e-mailings. I'd take recommendations for more streamlined food tracking sites, something like the RunningAhead.com of food tracking sites. Except that I have now devoted a not insignificant amount of time into entering nutritional info for many of our regular dishes into SparkPeople (I used the recipe analyzer at calorie-count.com). Marcus -- I think you're right, and I can see myself doing it long term. Then, I rather carefully track my checking account balance too, LOL. And, obviously, log my workouts. Indeed, the food diary plays right into my affection for the tracking of data. Thanks all for the encouragement!

And congratulations, Anne. I bet your running has improved, too!

Does anyone use FitDay? Would anyone here know how that site compare to others, like the SparkPeople one that Anne mentioned?

I use Fitday.

Well, I don't track my intake (I probably should). I had lost nearly 25 lbs over last year going form 175 to low 150s and actually even hit 149 and 150 a few times. The end of Jan I was still around 152-153, but then hurt my achilles and couldn't run for awhile. It didn't stop me from other exercises like my exercise bike and stuff, but my mind got lazy (proably a bit of depression) and did just about nothing up to afew weeks ago except eat and pertake of the spirits. The result is that I weighted in at 158-159. Restarted my running program a few weeks ago and am back down to 155-156, but have noticed that my good eating habits still isn't where it needs to be. Did cut down on my spirits, only one Barcardi and coke last night only wine the night before. So I'll see if I get back down as my mileage and intensity icreases and hopefully I can get back to eating more regularly and loose a few more lbs and if not,I'll persue the diary idea.

I use fitday and dietfacts. I have for the past 2.3 yrs I log every bite. My wife tells me I am to strict about this. Doug.