My Dear diary, thanks for helping me lose weight

Making a diary is certainly one of the smartest steps, in your fight to lose weight.

Keeping a food diary while trying to lose weight is probably one of the easiest and smartest steps you can take in order to achieve your goal and lose that extra weight. The idea of food diary is simply to "record" your daily food consumption. Whilst it should be done on daily basis, and as accurate as possible, it is a very easy task which can be done by anyone, with almost no relevance to age, unless you are very young. You can keep your diary simple or make it more complex by tracking number of facts. My suggestion is to keep it simple at first, mostly if the usage of a food diary is new to you. But, in order to stick to your weight loss plan, food diary is almost a must.

What do I write in my food diary?

There are number of factors you should relate to in your diary, but first and foremost simply write your daily menu. That is the simplest and the most important thing to write in your daily food diary .When doing so for some time you will probably be able to notice patterns in your eating which are not healthy and change them, gradually. In addition, you might consider adding records of calories, protein, fiber, fat, and other nutrients. Since it is a diary why not adding the reasons which make you go and grab some food, when it is not your regular meal time. You can also write the reasons for eating other than hunger. For example: did you eat because you were in social event, other people near you were eating and you joined them or any other reason. List how you feel about your diet and if you have crisis write about it too and the reason for the crisis, but try not give up. It is your daily food diary and you can write in it whatever you want.

Daily Food diary, traditional or Hi-Tech ?

When writing a food diary there is no need to be fixedon theold "pen and paper" method. Sure you can have a small notebook which you can slide with the rest of your personal things into your bag, and when you have time write in it. But, you can use your computer as well and write your diary in a digital method. Some people love working with Excel shits and that is great, if you want to add totals

at the end of the day. Others may prefer using a simple test editor like word or notepad. Those who like using more Hi-Tech gadgets may use laptops, palm pilots, blackberry or any other PDAS for their food diary. Simply choose the right way for you whatever it is traditional or Hi-Tech.

Reviewing your daily food diary

It is important that you won't forget to update your food diary each and every day, and review it from time to time. Try to review it at-least once a week. Devote this mission sufficient amount of time in order to look for unhealthy patterns of eating. If you had gained weight instead of losing it, try to look for the causes. if you reached certain goals for that week, give your-self a small prize .That way the task of losing weight will be much more fun. If the prize is something tasty to eat, it is ok as long as it doesn't have too much calories in it, and as long as you don't break your diet. It is best to show your daily food diary to professionals in order to make sure you are staying healthy .You will probably get some good tips from them as well. The most difficult in managing daily food diary is the decision to start one. After you already have started it, you will probably see in a few days that it is really simple and has wonderful affect on your diet. Many people, all over the world, using this method to help them lose weight and there is no reason why you won't get some great results from it too.

 Credit for the photo goes to : Lauren Manning

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenmanning/2979577079/