What is so special about keeping a food and exercise diary when you are trying to dump excess weight?

Well I have some great reasons AND even more important is the key reason for even using a diary.

The key is found towards the end of this post.

Here are 5 reasons why a diary can work for keeping you in shape.

1. Writing down what you eat actually make you THINK about what you are eating! (Now that’s important if you are one of those people who graze on ‘auto-pilot’ without thinking about the consequences of what is going in your mouth).
2. You have a record of your week’s nutrition – and you can check to see if you have actually eaten a balanced diet of REAL food – no junk, no diet shakes.
3. Hopefully, you will have a record of what WORKS so you can do it again!
4. If it didn’t work, you can go back over your week’s nutrition and pinpoint the trouble spots. The trouble points in your day or even the trouble spots in your week.
5. Keeping an exercise diary will help you keep on track and also show you your progress!

That’s just the first part of why keeping a diary is so good.The next part is the real KEY!

The REAL benefit of keeping a food/exercise diary is in the reflection.

Ask yourself these 6 KEY questions:

1. What did I do that worked?
2. Why did it work?
3. What do I need to do in order to repeat that success?
4. What did I do that didn’t help?
5. Why did I do that?
6. What action plan do I need to put in place to fix the problem?

You will be surprised to note that these simple questions can be applied to any area of your life. It is the reflection and action that truly makes ‘diary’ worthwhile. In education terms, we call this a ‘reflective log’

Try it out and see what happens.