Monday, February 22, 2010

Logging food

My diet is reasonably healthy, but there is room for improvement. (That's probably true for nearly everyone.) Every diet plan out there says you should write down what you eat, and I know they are right. Studies show that people who log what they eat lose weight and eat healthier. But I really resist strictly logging my food, even on sites that make it easy to do. The whole calorie thing makes me a little nuts, and then I get all stressed and want to lie to make my numbers better (even though I'm the only one who sees them!).

I saw a method the other day that I think might work for me. (For the life of my I can't remember where I saw this, or I'd give credit where credit is due.) The method was to write down everything you eat in a day on a piece of paper. At the end of the day, highlight what you ate that supports what you want in one color, and highlight things that don't support your goals in another color. The hope is that over time you'll have more positive to highlight and less negative.

Today I actually wrote down what I ate, although I don't intend to do the highlighting, as after running 18 miles, it's kind of all good!

Breakfast: raw almonds, protein shake with water

18 mile run: 3 Clif Shot gels

Post run: handful of seed crackers
scrambled eggs with peppers, onions and cheese
fresh strawberries
1 brownie bite
1 Samoa Girl Scout cookie

Afternoon: 1 T Better N Peanut Butter
handful chocolate raisins
green smoothie (spinach, kale, frozen fruit)
carrots

Dinner: 1/2 lemon-garlic fish fillet
steamed broccoli
butter lettuce & strawberry salad
5 Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies
2 handfuls M&Ms

I'm not feeling like there's much I want to change here! Ok, so maybe fewer M&Ms. I'm planning on having a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats with soy milk before bed. (I know you should never eat right before bed, but I've been doing so all my life!)

I'll let you know how the food logging goes, friends!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great job on the long run. I think it's a good thing that I've only seen the Girl Scouts once and when I saw them, I snuck out the other door that they weren't hovering at.

Anne said...

I fell of the food log wagon a few months ago. This post is a good reminder to get back to counting calories more closely, though I find that, like you, I sometimes fudge serving sizes to stay within range. However, it does give me pause when I see by lunch how much I've already accumulated.

And how the heck do you stop at one Girl Scout cookie?!

Irene said...

I've also started tracking again, this week. I did OK yesterday, but I spent time with my dad this morning and afternoon and forgot about it. That being said, I did make some decent choices.

And, yeah, what Anne said... How do YOU stop ad one Girl Scout cookie? That's awesome.