What Shape Is Your Diet In Now?

Third Entry: The shape you are in now is how your body is shaped by the kind and the amount of food you are eating. Before you do anything, before you start any diet of any kind, take one full day and write down everything you eat. And I mean everything. Don't forget to include drinks if you're doing anything besides water. Milk, regular sugary soft drinks, and alcoholic drinks, all have calories. Don't bother with calculating how many calories everything has yet, though. Just get down your list of foods for one full day.

What goes on a "food list?" If you have a boiled egg for breakfast, write it down. If you have a burger and fries and chocolate malt for lunch, write that down. And nothing is too small to add to the list. A stick of gum has 5 calories, coffee with cream, and I don't mean cream with a little coffee splashed in, is about 20 calories. Now take a good hard look at it. Can you do better? Are there better choices you could be making? Are you in a food rut, eating the same thing day in, day out? Is the list out of balance as in: too many sweets, too many carbs, or too many high fat foods?

Some experts say keeping a food diary of what you eat is, on its own, enough to encourage weight loss. It makes you visualize what you're putting into your mouth, (and therefore your body) and helps keep it in check. This many years after my weight loss, I'm still keeping a daily food diary for the purpose of maintenance. It really does let me see what shape my diet is in!