Lose Weight By Writing

Write it down and lose weight!

I can almost guarantee you will lose weight if you start writing down every bit of food you eat. Try it for a week, try it for a month. You will soon see a difference in the type and amount of food you're eating. The whole idea is to be totally, brutally honest. After all you'd only be cheating yourself if you weren't.

Listen for the foods that hum to you. Look at your list and recognise how many of those foods hummed to you and which ones beckoned. (Read the first post in this blog if you haven't yet) If you keep writing and listening your list will gradually change. Stop finishing your dinner just because it's 'there'. If your body is telling you enough, better in the trash than in your stomach. (and no starving children across the world will suffer because you didn't finish everything on the plate!) NEVER eat just to be polite. It's easy to say a gracious 'no thanks' when that second helping of dessert or cake is offered.

As easy as it sounds, writing down every morsel of food that passes your lips is sometimes quite difficult to do. You can't very well be scribbling notes over dinner with friends. But you can take mental notes and keep your list handy so that you can update it when convenient. If you leave it until the end of the day you'll find yourself forgetting things for sure.

Here's my list for week 3.

My food intake from Sunday 21 Jan to Saturday 28 Jan

2 black coffee
sml vanilla yogurt
2 nectarines
bowl muesli
Baileys/vodka over shaved ice
Bowl Spag Bol
pineapple juice

2 black coffee
2 pieces Bergen seed toast w vegemite
1 nectarine
1 fruits of forest muesli bar
1 miniz ice block
piece grilled fish on lettuce
1 potato with butter and coleslaw
pineapple juice

2 black coffee
bowl muesli
glass energy cocktail (banana/OJ/carrot)
4 cad roses chocolates
10 Allens naturals jubes
grilled fish w coleslaw
1 small potato
pineapple juice

2 black coffee
1 wholegrain toast w crab pate
glass energy cocktail (banana/guava juice/carrot/yogurt/nectarine)
6 cracker biscuits w seafood dip
laksa w noodles, prawns, chicken and chinese veg
4 fantales & 10 jaffas
pineapple juice

2 black coffee
1 english muffin w jam
glass juice (banana/guava juice/carrot/yogurt/nectarine)
1/2 TimeOut choc bar
2 italian fairy cakes
3 slices pizza
pineapple juice

2 black coffee
glass energy cocktail (banana/guava juice/carrot/yogurt/peach)
handful smarties
1 cadbury roses choc
grilled fish
Greek salad
1 nectarine
pineapple juice

The Food We Eat In a Week!

This food list, every bit of food I ate for the last week, may seem like a small amount, but I assure you I am never hungry. And weeks vary, some weeks I eat lots of vegetables, sometimes more meat, occasionally dairy products like cheese or yogurt - never milk as I have a natural aversion to the taste probably the result of being a bronchial child not allowed milk as mucous-causing. Anyway it's never hurt me and I certainly don't seem to suffer calcium deficiency. My fingernails are as strong as hard plastic and my teeth are good! Most days I drink quite a lot of water. Sometimes I pig out on something that hums to me, could be anything from chocolate cake to pickled herrings.

With so much beautiful food around it's not surprising most people in western society overeat. It's very tempting. It's a national pastime to cook and share gourmet foods with friends. I don't see anything wrong with that except the amount we consume. Far more than we need to have a healthy body. If everyone cut down on their consumption even a bit, we wouldn't be facing the problems associated with obesity as our society gets fatter and fatter! The diet industry would go out of business if we all took responsibility for our own bodies and stopped blaming outside factors, genetics or anything else. It's simple - you really ARE what you eat!

I am 5' 4" (163cm) and have had a constant weight between 110 and 120lbs (50 - 54K) for the last 20 years. I have never dieted and do very gentle leg and arm weight exercise mostly to keep muscle toned. Face exercises too. They don't do much for weight but help keep toned. Weight-bearing exercises are recommended at any age, not only for toning muscles but supposedly improving memory and mental alertness. As a grandmother of teenage girls we share the same clothes size! (They're more likely to wear mine than I am to wear theirs!)

The list below is just one week of my food intake and in order to show a fuller variety of menus I am continuing my notes and will post each week in the hope of inspiring you to do the same. It's not meant as a diet, don't go hungry. It is a list of the food that hummed to me and satisfied my hunger. Everyone will be different. Just for a week, try writing down every morsel of food and drink you have. It hardly needs to be said you must be totally honest and not leave anything out, not even a peanut! A lot of eating we do almost automatically and keeping a list will make you stop and think. Maybe you don't really want that second piece of cake, it won't look good on the list!

Please come back to post your list and share your comments.

ALL food from Sunday 7 January 2007 to Saturday 13 Jan
----------------------------------------------------------
2 x black coffee
1 slice wholegrain toast & vegemite
2 passionfruit
Laksa - noodles, fish, prawns
pineapple juice

2 x black coffee
1 slice wholegrain toast & vegemite
1 apricot danish
small bowl meusli
2 enchiladas
mineral water
pineapple juice

2 x black coffee
1 passionfruit
small bowl meusli
2 yogurt meusli bars
large bowl salad
1 slice wholemeal bread w proscutto
1 piece fruit cake
pineapple juice

2 x black coffee
1 slice wholemeal toast w proscutto
1 banana
1 nectarine
glass berrocca B
1 baileys & vodka on ice
Thai chicken curry w rice
pineapple juice

3 x black coffee
2 nectarines
ham, cheese, salad on turkish bread
2 x macadamia cookies
few grapes & cherries
1 vodka and tonic
hamburger w salad on bun
pineapple juice

2 x black coffee
KFC zinger burger
sips of mountain view
1 butter cookie
8 oysters natural
grilled fish, salad, few chips
slice fruit cake
pineapple juice

2 x black coffee
1 croissant w jam
1 banana
1 nectarine
Udon noodles w asian veg & chicken
frozen berry cream dessert
pineapple juice