Our favorite journals are handmade by Erica Birk and available at www.absolutelyevo.com

Why journal? There really are some rewards!

Food journaling is a pain. No one likes to write down everything that goes between their lips. Add weighing and measuring, and calorie, fat and carb counting to the mix, and we call that a recipe for disaster.

Consider this:

• Most people think they eat less than they do;
• have no idea how many extra calories they consume mindlessly throughout the day;
• slowly gain weight over the years – as much as three pounds annually – which at year one or two does not show. But after a decade or two….

Enter food journaling, but with a twist. It really is not too hard to accomplish, and our clients tell us it becomes a habit after a few days.

1.    Buy yourself a journal that you like, one that you can take with you wherever you go.

2.    Buy a writing tool that is easy to use, and if color is your thing, go for it. Many of our clients use their journals not only to track their foods but to doodle and draw, making some of them little works of art.

3.    Write down everything you eat. Everything. Even that stick of gum or tic tac you popped into your mouth for sweet breath.

4.    Once you master the food part, start including how that food made you feel. For example, if you had an egg for breakfast and still was not hungry at 1 p.m., that’s interesting news. So is eating a bagel or donut at 7 a.m. and then being ravenous three hours later.

This journal is all about awareness, the first step in creating a new you. Once you begin to make the connection between the food you eat and how it affects your health and energy, you begin to experiment and naturally make better choices.

Need more convincing? A large study that tracked food loggers over three years found that those who journaled lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t.