Tracking your food intake is a job that takes some dedication and it has big rewards. It is worth doing even if you don’t intend to change a thing about how you are eating. You will learn all about yourself and your habits. Some people get around this by eating the same thing every day. They don’t have to keep a journal because it would be a very short book. But even those people will break their routines, for example at the holidays. There is a reason why it is common to gain weight during the holidays! Hint: you break the routine and start eating new things and more of them.
I don’t use an app or anything. Those don’t work for me. I prefer my own spreadsheet.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – 2x pancakes (75); sugar-free syrup (10); butter (20)
- 180 calories
Lunch – Costco meatballs (280) 3 tablespoons hummus (100); Aldi wheat wrap (90); pickles (20);
- 490 calories
Dinner – grilled pork burger (450); half wheat wrap (45); oven fried potatoes (105);
- 600 calories
Snacking – none (00)
- 0 calories
Total for the day: 1270 calories (limit 1700)
If your stomach doesn't call vigorously, with a shout!
Don’t just keep eating because you have calories left in the daily budget. That’s an important lesson that takes a lot of confidence. Saturday I had over 2000 calories and felt uncomfortably full. (I am rarely if ever full while living this lifestyle. I aim more for a feeling of fulfillment. So being physically full is a strange sensation now.) Sunday I had 1450 calories and today 1270. Was I making up for Saturday’s overeating? Or just not hungry?
I’d be lying if I said Saturday wasn’t in my mind at all. But I have learned my lesson over a year and a half of mostly successful dieting. It goes: Don’t Punish Yourself Today for Yesterday’s Mistake. I usually say: today is a new day. I deliberately had a small breakfast today thinking I would like dessert at the end of the day – cake or pie. But after dinner, which was extraordinarily delicious, I was so fulfilled that I didn’t feel any need for more food or dessert. I had the calories to spend but didn’t spend them.
Another saying: don’t eat if you are not hungry for it. If your stomach isn’t calling with a shout! for more food, don’t feed it. You won’t enjoy it nearly as much. And I aim to enjoy food as much as possible, in the best possible way. I try to enjoy fulfilling my physical need for food at just the right moment with exactly the food I want most. It’s a balancing game that keeps things exciting and interesting and a constant challenge that I enjoy. Don’t let yourself confuse eating for hunger with eating for emotional reasons. That ends with overeating and an unhealthy food relationship. Aim high and be simple. Food is for physical hunger.
Choose good values and live them out! You will succeed.
-The Doctor