Do you face your food journal?

I’m a lil bit obsessed with my food journal. I plan out what I’m going to eat and write it down. Sometimes, if it’s late at night, I’ll borrow something from the next day (bad habit, I know), and I’m usually able to compensate by not “borrowing” again the next day.

Sometimes, though, when I’m going through a transition (coming home, going on vacation, etc.), sometimes I get off schedule, and end up with a “balance” that gets added to my weight to lose (from un-compensated-for-”borrowing”). For example, “Oh, crap, this week I had an extra 700 calories…guess I have 5 pounds to lose PLUS 700 calories.” Make sense?

Yes, I food journal.

I totally don’t face the journal as much as I should. I also start out with good intentions. I eat a good breakfast and I take my healthy lunch to work feeling so proud of myself. Then the office mates want to go out to eat and I feel like I want to as well and I end up indulging in that. I am usually able to get back on track when I get home but that doesn’t always happen either.

I think I do a little bit of both. Last week when I fell face first into vacation eating I still journalled but didn’t figure out the points. I knew perfectly well that whatever the points were of the half pint of Ben and jerry’s was well above my daily points. It was enough to have it in writing and understand that there would be a slight gain at weigh in.

Since I’m in the beginning weeks of WW I think it’s important for me to have that record. So if there are a few weeks when I don’t lose or even gain I can look and see that it’s not the program, it’s me not following the program.

I just skipped my whole weekend of my food journal for the same reason! Funny. Maybe I should be unabashed and write everything down to make everyone realize that we’re all struggling and@#$% happens :) But still, there’s just something about admitting to eating a 1/4 stick of butter for the hell of it (really, just plain butter, nothing else) makes me feel like a freak! ;) Thanks for taking the lead Roni! I’ll try better next time ( like tommorrow when I reach for the other stick of butter maybe the fear of blogging it will motivate me to stay away from it….MAYBE. I do LOVE butter!)

I do journal, and at times it helps me keep on track knowing I have to write it down. However I do find sometimes I don’t want to write some things down if I totally go overboard….and am working on journaling no matter what!! I’m a bit of a perfectionist so if I have a bunch of half day journals that week it makes me not want to continue journaling for the week…I’m struggling with that this week!!!

I love food journaling — it was the key to me losing weight. I keep mine online at sparkpeople, and I will usually plan my day out in the morning (so I know what food to carry with me to work), or sometimes the night before.

When I do have a bad night of overindulgence I generally don’t journal it, so I do have a few half-day journals. For me, it’s less about accountability and looking back, then about planning and preparation, so I don’t sweat those half-dayers.

I have kept a food journal for about a month now. I just recently decided to go about 90% vegan. The 10% is all added ingredients to products I already had. The journal has helped a lot, especially with mindless eating in the evenings. Yesterday I found this cool site to help you categorize your food and see if you get enough daily servings. I’m sure everyone knows about it already!
http://www.mypyramid.gov/
And going vegan has helped tremendously with cutting out junk, processed foods, and unhealthy fats/carbs.

I have to admit i love to keep both a paper journal and an online one! I used to not put things in when i had a binge but now i make sure to at least write it in the paper one so i can go back and see what may have contributed to it!!

I do and it helps alot. At first it helped me understand servings and then it turned into helping me decide if I wanted to waste points on something that wasn’t worth it. Now it helps anchor me because I know that the decisions are mine and I am accountable. In July, there was a week were I totally fell off the wagon and wasn’t journalling….on came 5 lbs. It is that easy for me, so I have to journal. I journal a quick line about my feelings at the end of the night too, helps to motivate me sometimes.

Since beginning maintenance, I went awhile without journaling altogether, but after awhile decided just to write down what I was eating. Its just in a notebook, I don’t count points or calories, but rather just write it down, and at the end of day, I just try to pick on thing I could have improved on. Yesterday it was the few bites of potato salad I had. I think it helps me keep a perspective on what I’m eating.

Yes, I do food journal. When I started WW’s a 14 months ago, I was exact all the time and didn’t eat it, even if I had to estimate. I have of course relaxed over time and after 80 pounds gone. I’m at a pretty comfortable weight now and while I still want to lose a bit, I’ve gradually begun to have more and more days like you discribe above. For example…yesterday…started out great. Breakfast and lunch were no problem. Then at 4pm, when I should have been making supper, I made a batch of brownies from a mx that I ‘ve been wanting to get our of the cupboard. And of course I licked and then sampled my way to being out of points for the day…I think anyways, because I was estimating. I hate that. But to my best estimate…I still have flex points left, so it’s not all bad.

I definitely journal- I think it’s critical not only the weight loss mode but maintenance as well. It’s easy to think that we can keep up with it in our heads, or just “be reasonable” with our food choices, but it’s that lack of structure that causes problems (for most people). I have learned that maintenance is extremely intensional. You have to know what you’re eating and you have to consider your calories/points- when I don’t, I should never be confused as to why my weight goes up. It’s like with anything- when you’re in control there is a more predictable outcome. I think people who work out regularly (and really burn some calories), have more room when it comes to being intense on the food journal. I am active but not a scheduled “worker-outer” so I really have to be thoughtful with the food aspect of this. And I have to say, it works!

:)Amy

I do journal. I noticed that on Saturdays and Sundays sometimes there are two blank pages. Most of the time, I write everything I eat plus the exercise and I’ve been able to face it. If I mess up or eat too much I just start over the next day. Writing everything down helps me a lot. If not now, it helps me to look back and see how I feel.

Well, I go back and forth. I journal pretty well to begin with…then I start leaving things off…then I just stop and count in my head. I usually go back to journaling after I stop losing or am facing some gains. I actually just had a little blurb about this in a blog not to long ago.
I should be better…and I should post them, but I just don’t like people to see how much I really eat. It isn’t pretty. I have a high number for points because I am pretty heavy.
The good news is that I am now down 33 lbs and am doing pretty well. I am back journaling and doing great with that. I am putting in every “blt” no matter how much I don’t want to and have noticed quite a few patterns that have led me to gaining again.

I also leave my weekends at the end of the point counting week so that I know to save my 35 points for special dinners out or drinks.

When I first started WW I journaled consistently and lost. But then the holiday season came around and I got lazy and went back to bad eating habits. After gaining some weight back I realized I needed to make myself accountable again so I resumed journaling. This sort of became a cycle for me – journal and lose, go back to unhealthy eating habits and stop journaling, and then starting journaling again in an attempt to regain control.

Currently, I don’t really do WW anymore and I am still losing. WW helped me learn correct portions and how I should be eating. Now I am aware of what I should or shouldn’t be eating and my own conscience puts me in check. Not to say I don’t go back to journaling ever – I do, but only for a few days to remind me of how I should be eating.

It’s an incredibly empowering feeling to know that I no longer have to follow the plan exactly, but rather I now know how to be healthy – and for the most part, I stick to it! (Of course, Roni – you help motivate me!)

I like you, am in my 3rd year of maintenance. I still journal, not like I did at first but it is what keeps me accountable. The tricky part is that late night snacking. Those things don’t usually get written down mostly because of the hour that I consume them. Our eating habits are very similar (except that I do drink diet soda and coffee, caffeine is my vice). I have really been struggling to not do the handful of this or that in the evening. Maybe we could be accountability partners in this area? I am afraid these little things are going to add up.

To be honest I journal but as soon as I get home I toss the journal. With a temp disabled husband, a toddler and a million other things to do I often don’t journal past 4pm. Its bad and I wished I knew how to get out of this. I only wished I could find something that will help me with this.

I need to get back to journaling…between my bff dying last year, the holidays, a move and a relationship not going the way I’d like it too…I’ve allowed myself to many liberties. I think when I write it down and see it in front of me I’ll be more aware. I lost 140 lbs, but ever so slowly over the last few months 25 of it has crept back on :(