Writing a food journal means paying a lot of attention. There’s more to it than just sitting down at the end of the day, or the end of the week(!) and trying to remember what you ate. A food journal is kept right at the time you eat. I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Today, I had a tea break at 3.30 PM. With cookies. That means I wrote in my food journal four times today. It takes a lot of time and attention to control your body’s weight. Don’t think you can do it just when you have spare time. You get spare time when your food journal is done!
Also, you should be paying attention to a lot more than just what you ate. If you are in control, then you are paying attention to what you are going to eat next, too. Next meal, next day, next week….it shuld be food that makes you happy to think about it and want to eat it. Then it is worth getting a little hungry for.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 2oz ham (100); Swiss cheese (90); toasted bread (160); sandwich with pickles and mustard and horseradish (negligible calories)
- 350 calories
Lunch – 8oz homemade sausage chili (330); 1oz tortilla chips (160); 2T sour cream (60)
- 550 calories
Dinner – 1/2 slice Costco pizza (355); 10 ounces homemade Lentil soup (190); toasted bread and butter (150);
- 695 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80); 5 Kirkland Euro chocolate cookies (210)
- 290 calories
Total for the day: 1885 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)
I never know
I only weigh myself once a week (usually), on Saturday mornings. I never know until I read the scale, whether I have lost weight that week. It is always, even after months of weight loss, a happy surprise when I have lost. It has gotten so reliable that keeping the same weight (or even gaining a pound, which happened one or two times) is strange and requires explanation. I have learned, though data in my food journal, that slowdowns, halts, and reversals in weight loss (which can last weeks!) are almost always illness or travel related. When I get better, weight loss resumes.
Part of the reason I don’t know before I get on the scale, is that I don’t understand and have no experience with my body at this weight. The last time I weighted 246 (apart from last week), was 15 or 20 years ago. When I go swimming and look in the mirror, it’s not like I can see that I have lost a pound or two since last time. The weight around my middle doesn’t seems to change very drastically week to week. I do know that the size 46 pants I have been wearing since early July are pretty loose now, but they might have stretched a bit. My size 44 new pants are a bit snug, honestly. (Yes, I know when I started wearing size 46 pants because that’s in my food journal. It has a lot of uses. Keep a food journal!)
Amazingly, because of my food journal, I know that in early July I weighed 264 pounds. That’s a loss of almost 20 pounds and I am in the same pants! Honestly, they are a bit loose. But there is such a thing as stretching the waist out. I just can’t be sure using any other way but the scale.
I have had to get rid of some dress shirts. My neck is smaller now, even if my waist has only shrunk a bit. So that’s goodbye to anything with a size 18 neck. The problem is that a dress shirt with a size 17 neck has a smaller body too….so my neck is shrinking quicker than my waist. That’s awkward. It sounds like I need to lose more and hope it comes off at the waist! Classically, men gain weight first around their middle and then it spreads to other areas. Logically, that means I will lose the weight around my waist….last. But by that logic, at some point it will take less than 20 pounds to lose a pants size. There won’t be anywhere else to lose from.
Paying proper attention is a lot of work. Pay attention to important things and it will help you a lot.
-The Doctor
Here it is 10:40 a.m. and you haven’t posted your Saturday weigh in –what’s up with that? I came here looking to see how successful your week was (weight loss-wise) and I leave, disappointed because the anticipation was foiled.
Logically, I have just made your anticipation stronger. It’s called Making Them Wait For It.