I keep a diet journal. I write my weight in it once a week, and I write down Steller Dieting Insights I have, and I make lists of useful foods, and I write down milestones like going down a size, and I write to distract myself from eating, and I use it as a confessional, and I write in it when I’m feeling very tempted to scrap the whole diet.
I recommend it. It’s helpful at the time I’m writing (accountability, therapy, distraction), and it’s helpful to look back and see progress: from “I don’t think I can do this” to “I’m doing this!”
It’s also helpful for my character, to be reminded of what a REPETITIVE, LAME, incredibly SLOW learner I am. I was looking back at my last diet, to see at what point I was able to fit in my next-size-down jeans—I don’t even want to TRY them if I might not fit. And I found myself reading basically the same things I’d JUST been writing.
Easter 2006: All day I ate sweets. They all tasted too sweet—sharp and cloying—but I felt like I’d regret it if I didn’t fully take advantage of this Free Day.
Easter 2008: Today I barely even wanted the candy, and ate it partly out of feeling like I’d be mad at myself later for not taking the opportunity when I had it.
Easter 2006: So I spent all morning eating Hershey and Cadbury and Reese’s. Do I feel great? No, queasy. Was it really fun and satisfying? No, it was just okay. So WHY can’t I take this experience WITH me, so I won’t pine incessantly for the candy I apparently don’t even want?
Easter 2008: I’ve felt queasy all day. When I eat candy, I feel yucky. But when I CAN’T eat candy, I want it ALL THE TIME. It’s a CONSTANT STRUGGLE. WHY IS IT? Since candy makes me feel sick, why can’t I REMEMBER that information and NOT EAT IT?
March 2006: My body feels suddenly different. I notice it feels different to wash, like after a haircut. My jeans are loose enough, I’m thinking of trying the next size down.
March 2008: I suddenly feel different, smaller. I’m tempted to try on smaller jeans. It’s like instead of a HAIRcut, I got a BODYcut.
In fact, what I recommend is keeping a diet journal just once, and then RECYCLING it. No sense wearing out your wrist and wasting ink.
Body cut ~ unfortunately it just takes much longer than sitting in the stylist’s chair & letting them hack at your head.
I need to get both hacked on at this point!
Oh I could save so much time and energy if you just made me a copy of your journal because those Easter entires? That’s ME exactly!
HA! I laughed right out loud.
I was JUST thinking today how really sick candy makes me feel, after eating a Cadbury egg and a mini Reese’s egg and a slice of leftover Easter cake (justification: yes, I just had candy, but if I don’t eat the cake up SOON it will be dry and stale and WHAT A WASTE.)
I don’t know what is wrong with me. It makes me feel like such a hypocrite, lecturing Addy about eating all her big girl food, how we can’t have jelly beans for breakfast, etc., and then making such a pig of myself. Gaah.
So, I don’t keep a diet journal and I don’t own a scale. I am dieting however (trying to lose the baby weight–gah, HATE that term), and I have just recently begun to feel what you’re calling a “bodycut.” I am still too scared to try on my “skinny” jeans.
However, I am an infrequent student in an awesome yoga class, and I attended last night after two weeks of making excuses not to go. Anyway, you know what? I found that I could do some poses better (deeper, etc.) and bind (wrap arms around and through legs in various pretzelly torture) some poses that I NEVER COULD BEFORE. Because there was PHYSICAL FLAB IN THE WAY. And it’s NOT THERE ANYMORE. Can you tell I’m excited?
That’s great! I do the same thing when I’ve got my sh$t together. It’s funny, the excerpts, I find that as well when I look back.
I love the benchmark of the Easter entries–it makes for just a total parallel.
Thanks for sharing about the journal… I just started one –in blog form (yes, I have waaay too many blogs on my plate!)– not quite a month ago.
I was just saying to myself how I need get back to writing more about the emotions and thoughts of it all and not just the numbers and menu of the day. It’s nice to process all of that and have it to reflect on later.
Love the parallel of your Easters… isn’t it crazy the thoughts that go thru our heads and the things we do out of habit and/or “obligation”?
This is so hilarious. And it prompted me to look into my old journal and low and behold I found shockingly similar results. The line “I don’t know why I’ve ever let myself get here, I know it feels so much better to be healthy” was written no less then five times.
I am totally going to start a diet journal, actually, even though I’ve already been on Weight Watchers for months, because I think it might help me keep pushing at this point of plateau where I’m starting to feel bored. Thanks for the suggestion.
That’s so funny. Good thing you kept the old ones, so you can see the similarities and what worked. lol
I always feel gross after eating too much candy – especially if it’s in the vein of Nerds/SweetTarts/Spree. I’m not as bad with chocolate (thank goodness!)
You have to be proud of yourself though for doing such a great job so far! I wish I could be as dedicated!
Eating too much candy makes me feel ill too but I can’t seem to stop myself either. I loved the diet entries.
I am SO TOTALLY impressed by this. Not just the record keeping involved, but the fact that you can physically keep track of a journal AND know where the earlier version is stored AND find it AND consult it. Whoa. You must be seriously ORGANIZED. Seriously.
What’s funny is that I am thinking I have to cut sugar out of my life because it seems to be a headache trigger and I want to wait until AFTER I eat all the Easter candy because we have some very nice chocolate lying around. So, I eat the chocolate and don’t even like it because all I can do is wonder if I am going to end up lying on the bathroom floor in pain but if I am not eating it it is taunting me from the pantry. So…I hear you. Too loudly.
Yup. I’m with ya – the more things change, the more they stay the same…
too funny and too true. i’m on journal number four and i find myself sometimes saying repeating the same darn goals. lose weight, cook better, get a job, be patient, be a better parent…you know the trivial stuff….
it’d be funny if i had really imp. issues to write about and repeated it over again.
i like your insight.
I just laughed so loud after reading this post that I woke up my 3 yr old! oops…
I can so relate to this post – and when I’m organized enough to keep a food/mood journal I consciously try NOT to write the first thing in my mind because I know I just repeat myself. Isn’t it funny (maddeningly) that we have such a set internal dialogue about ourselves?! THAT is the primary reason it’s so hard to change our eating and activity habits – because of what we repeatedly tell ourselves!
I’m going downstairs right now to throw out all the chocolate before I eat it out of obligation – you know, to the Easter Bunny who so generously left it all over our house. lol
I was fine (because I did not buy any extras for me and did not have a basket this year) until my son offered to share… But I kept it to a box of Peeps, which I don’t even like so I guess that fits in with the why do we do what we do when we don’t even like it?
that’s so funny … well at least you are consistent!
I love this post, especially when I am psyching myself up to be gung-ho about dieting post baby.
I should bookmark this page.
So funny and so true. Why is it candy never tastes as good as I think its going to taste when I want to eat it but shouldn’t be? Forbidden Reese’s taste sweeter er more peanut buttery?
Yes, I have all kinds of insights and then instantly forget them, only to journal the same insight again later, as if it were new information.
haaaa. oh dear. it’s not funny. i was.. um.. thinking about a joke i heard earlier.
*Sigh* I want a “bodycut*
I gave up candy for Lent (not even a thing I observe, Lent, but I wanted to break the bad candy-at-work habit I’d developed) and when I ate a bunch of candy on Easter after so long without it it all tasted just ick…and I still kept mindlessly eating it anyway. Sigh.
Ahhh yes, I know this feeling. It SOO bothers me to know that I keep repeating my same mistakes, thus perpetuating the yo-yo effect in my life. I am a smart person, honestly.
KEEP BELIEVING
If you ask me, this post is a good reason NOT to keep a journal. It’s always galling to find out how much you don’t really change.
As usual, I laughed.