Yes, you have to track your foods.
I feel like I harp on this often and no one likes to hear it. Me included. Tracking your food intake is tedious, but it’s necessary to make changes in your diet. For most of us, those changes are reducing our calorie intake in order to lose weight, but tracking intake is great tool for other dietary changes, too.
Most people, caught up in full-time work, kids, social commitments, and everything else, don’t have an idea of how many calories we eat in a day, often to the point that it’s difficult to even recall everything we’ve consumed on a busy day. That is our brain focusing our attention on more important things that deserve our brainpower. The neglected attention to intake is helpful in allowing us to keep up momentum of thought and commit our focus where it’s needed. However, this lack of awareness around our intake allows all of us to consume much more than we realize. Our brains are also incredible at rationalizing. The “it’s been so crazy today that I haven’t been able to sit down or eat a meal so I’ll have this easily accessible, tasty, free candy bar” mindset. It is completely normal. But it doesn’t help us to lose weight or eat a more nutritious diet.
Enter: tracking your food intake for a set time. It shouldn’t be something that consumes you or that you have to devote a lot of time to. You simply write down what you eat & when. The “when” isn’t quite as important, but can help tremendously with self-awareness regarding hunger triggers. I know many nurses I’ve worked with will hardly eat throughout the work day, but are ravenous when they get home & compensate for all the missed calories throughout the day with a big meal & snacks shortly before bed. In that scenario, the “when” can make a big difference. Tracking food intake is an exercise in self-awareness. It helps us to see patterns in our hunger and what reach for out of convenience. Once we’re aware of those habits and patterns, we can use that information to make positive changes.
If you haven’t tried keeping a food log before, and weight loss or eating more nutritious foods is a goal of yours, I challenge you to try it! It’s completely free and takes minutes per day. If you’re an app person, there are COUNTLESS apps designed to help. I’m not in love with any of the free ones, but, if it helps you stick to it, try them. Small word of caution on most apps: they’re mostly calorie-based with often unfamiliar serving sizes and can fixate on daily calorie goals rather than strictly observation of what you’re already eating.
I’d love to work with you on any of your health goals, together finding a way to ingrain healthier habits into your lifestyle! Link to book a time to chat below!