The problem of excess weight for a modern person is very relevant. In addition to sports, an active lifestyle and a balanced diet, such a useful thing as a food diary will come to help in this matter.
Want to eat right - keep a diary
Ancient people only ate food when they were hungry. Then the conditions for obtaining food were very harsh, and many simply could not afford a sudden snack when the body is not hungry. In a completely different way, the diet of modern man is organized. Scientists have proven that half of the foods that we consume are completely unnecessary for the body. Often people eat for company because it is time for lunch or they liked some product in the supermarket, and they decided to eat it.
If you want to establish your diet, be sure to keep a food diary. In it you will write down not only everything that you ate during the day, week, month, but also the motives that prompted you to sit at the table.
Later, when analyzing your food diary, you will see which foods turned out to be completely useless, where there is a gap (for example, few fruits and vegetables) and at what moments you gave vent to your appetite. Thus, you can adjust your diet: remove unnecessary and add useful.
Reach the goal
On the title page you should write the main goal that you want to achieve, for example, to remove from the diet everything fatty and spicy or sweet and butter. Perhaps you want to reduce the number of calories or lose weight by 5 kilograms in a month. Remember: if the goal is clearly marked, it will be easy to move towards it step by step.
Four main positions
You must carefully keep a food diary. A sample of it can be four required columns that need to be filled out:
- The time when you eat. Make a clear record of what time you started breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Do not forget about snacks. Even if you just ate one cookie, write down the time. This will allow you to clearly see how many times a day you eat.
- The amount of food. It seems to many that they eat little, but when they start to write down the approximate weight of the dishes, they themselves are surprised. When you ask a person what he ate for breakfast, what he answers in monosyllables: oatmeal or a sandwich. And when you look at the record, it turns out that a piece of cheese, fried toast and some sweets for tea joined the oatmeal. Such regular notes will allow you to see what was on your desk redundant.
- The reasons you sat at the table. Often this happens because a person obeys the natural rhythm and mode of operation. He got up at 7.00, had breakfast at 7.30. Lunch at 13.00, because the break at work. Dinner, respectively, at 18.00-19.00. But there is also a coffee break, when a sweet bun joins the drink, and tea drinking for a company with a neighbor, when candies or cookies are suddenly added. Or something tasty in the evening in front of the TV. If you record everything, then you will immediately see what meals can be safely excluded.
- The energy value of each dish. There are quite a few food calorie tables, so doing this will be easy. A calorie-based nutrition diary will help those who want to lose weight.
Analysis and control help balance your diet
The more you keep your notes, the more effective you can organize a meal. For example, you can add graphs such as a feeling of hunger on a 5-point scale before eating. It is also advisable to note how much time you feel hungry again. It will be useful to note your emotional state, and at the beginning of each day, before breakfast, to weigh yourself and make these indications in the diary.
Literally after 1-2 weeks, after analyzing your notes, you can clearly identify those dishes after which there is maximum satiety, and those that you can completely do without. You will see what useful components are missing on your desk. This will help make your diet more sensible and healthy.