Try this Surprising Weight-Loss Tool: Journaling!
How’s this for a deal? Keep a journal during your diet, and you may double your weight loss! Today, I’ll tell you why.
A diet of real, clean foods will take extra weight off you quickly. So will bone broth mini-fasts. And you know what else melts off fat? Journaling. Obviously, it’s not because you get much exercise when you’re writing in a journal (unless you have a really heavy pen!). Nope. It’s because journaling helps you take control over your eating.
That’s why research shows that dieters who journal lose twice as much weight as those who don’t. Here’s why journaling during your diet is so powerful:
- It keeps your eyes on the prize. When you’re doing a diet, it’s easy to lose sight of your goals. Sure, you’re all excited for the first few days. But after that, you may start to focus on the downsides—like giving up your Friday night pizza, or having to order water instead of whiskey when you’re out with friends. When you journal, it’s much easier to keep your long-term goals in mind. Each day, you can actively reaffirm those goals—and that will help you stick to them.
- It makes you aware of what you eat—and how food makes you feel. It’s easy to get in the habit of eating mindlessly. For instance, did you ever scarf down an entire can of Pringles while you were watching TV? (C’mon, you know you did.) When you take time to journal about your food, it makes you more aware of how much you’re eating. You learn to eat more mindfully, paying attention to each mouthful and recognizing the signals that you’re full. In addition, journaling helps you spot foods that make you feel great and foods that don’t work for your body. For instance, you may discover that nuts give you gas, or that eating eggs for dinner helps you sleep better. The more you tailor your diet to your own unique needs, the healthier—and slimmer—you’ll be.
- It helps you fight temptation. If you journal about the moments when you’re tempted to eat something carby or sugary, you’re likely to start seeing some patterns. For instance, do you always have cravings in mid-morning—or are you tempted to eat during your “afternoon slump” at work? When you identify tricky times like these, you’ll be better prepared to handle them. (For example, you can quell a mid-morning craving with a handful of unsweetened coconut chips, a little avocado, or some olives—or fight that afternoon slump with a cup of energizing bone broth.)
- It helps you deal with the “carb flu.” A few days into your diet, you’re likely to start feeling “tired, cranky, wired, and weird.” This is because your body is learning to burn fat for energy instead of sugar, and it needs time to adjust. The carb flu only lasts a few days, and giving yourself a little pep talk in your journal each day during this time can help you resist the urge to give up. Some of my patients buy fancy journals, many journal on the computer, and at least one journals in her daughter’s old Barbie spiral notebook. It doesn’t matter what kind of journal you pick, as long as you write in it every day. I’d like you to record things like this:
- Your diet goals
- What you ate that day and when you ate it
- How you felt physically and emotionally during the day
- How many cravings you had, when you had them, and what worked to stop them
- Any symptoms of the carb flu you had
- How much exercise you got
- How well you slept the night before
- Your thoughts about your diet journey It only takes a few minutes each day to journal, and I think you’ll find the process fun and enlightening.
So give it a try—and watch those pounds fall off even faster! My FAVORITE journal to write in is the Moleskin, you can find it here: Moleskine Classic Notebook
Keep Thinking Big & Living Bold!
