The Power of Food Journaling!

Isn’t it funny how you think you’ve got it all under control, but something just nags at you? Apparently that is how my food intake has been going. I’ve been acting like everything is all chill, but the weight gain, even in the face of all my working out, was definitely a sign of something wrong! I’m eating way too much!
First, I have to say that when I started working out and adjusting my nutrition with the intention of losing fat, that I was a very big girl who was hauling around an additional 140-150 pounds (depending on the week) so I would burn a lot more calories on a workout than I do now. I remember going for a run, and while I burned through 1000 calories with moderate effort, Bradley would only get a credit of 400 calories*. I was pretty smug back then, but now I’ve realized how tricky that balance is. As a bigger person, working out definitely forgives you a few more caloric allowances. Consuming an extra 200-400 calories has a cost, but not nearly the cost that it has now! Those runs that used to burn up 1000 calories now only forgive me 400-600 depending on altitude, distance and effort. It used to be that I didn’t even have to push that hard to burn calories. Now that is definitely not true. All that really means is that I need to adjust my thinking. I’m not as big as I was therefore I can’t eat as much as I used to while exercising as much as I used to and expect to continue to lose weight like I used to. This is where it gets hard. I’ve heard about it. I just need to dial back the calories, start eating fresher and start doing more strength training. (Yeah, that’s all. 😉 )
Yesterday I tracked my diet for the first time in so long that I can’t remember the last time! I liked the independence of being able to trust myself, but I promised myself that the next time I got off track that I would start journaling to set myself straight. There’s nothing as revealing as typing in every last thing you ate and having the total presented.

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What I learned was that I am working out really hard and really well. I’ve been counting on that deficit every day to balance things out to the point this I’ll lose weight, magically, but the reality is that I’ve been eating my allowed 1612 calories in addition to the surplus provided by the workout deficit! And on many days I totally know I even ate more than that because yesterday I held back. I wanted to eat more than I allowed myself to eat and still ate more than I needed to.
I’m journaling my food again today. Journaling is so helpful for accountability to me. Before I eat whatever it is, I often reflect that I will have to include it in my journal and sometimes that’s motive enough to put it aside. Here’s to a solid day two as I bumble back into a fat loss cycle!
Tonight is booty camp!!!!
(It was awesome sauce with Janice & Jessica!)
*when you enter data into a food journal app it adds up the calories based on how much you ate. When you exercise, the app will delete those calories from what you already ate. For example, if you ate 1100 worth of calories one day and did a 300 calorie workout, the app will credit your calories for the day by settling it at 800 calories consumed for the day, does that make sense??? It gives me great motivation to move when I see the calories consumed change so drastically. 🙂

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