Confessions From A Personal Trainer: I’m back to journaling
True Confession Tuesday:
Where every Tuesday: I confess.
Confession: I am back to journaling my food.
I will be the first person to tell you that you do not need to journal your food forever. In fact, I don’t want you to be someone who depends on journaling their food to be able to eat. But, there are times when journaling your food can bring you back into focus.
I love granola. I keep little bags from the co-op of various granola and somehow I end up eating it by the handfuls when I open up the refrigerator. These handfuls add up to a lot of handfuls throughout the day.
I also love peanut butter. By the spoonful, on a carrot, on gluten free bread, you name it – I love it.
Let’s just be honest – I love food. But I don’t love when my love of food makes my pants tighter or slows me down in workouts.
So I am back to journaling my food using the My Fitness Pal app. I used to say “it’s too hard to enter all the food.” But those folks over there have made it so simple you can scan items and they go right in, you can save your favorite items, input recipes. They pretty much took all my excuses away.
As Gretchen Rubin says in her book “Better Than Before” about building habits –“you manage what you measure.” This applies to much more than just food. It can apply to any goal or behavior that you have. If you are working on building a habit or achieving a goal, think about how you can manage it by measuring.
- How much water you drink
- How much money you are saving/spending
- Your to-do list
- Your exercise for the week
- Grocery list/meal prep
- Taking your vitamins
- Sleep
- On and on and on
What do you want to manage by measuring?? What would be helpful? Do you need to do it in the short term like my food tracking or build into a longer, more sustainable habit??
If you want more information about building habits, I encourage you to watch/listen to my book review of “Better Than Before” by Gretchen Rubin. It is my favorite book review I have done so far. Lots of great, useful, tips on building habits. You can find it on my website with the other book reviews HERE.
“Often, when we repeatedly try to form a habit that we desire, we fail because we want to reap its benefits without paying the price it demands. Keeping a good habit may cost us: it may cost time, energy, and money, and it may mean forgoing pleasures and opportunities – but not keeping a good habit also has its cost. So which cost do we want to pay? What will make our lives happier in the long run?” Better Than Before p. 261
Photo Credit: Gretchen Rubin, gretchenrubin.com
If you enjoy the blog and would like to receive them directly to your email, along with education, event announcements and more – join us on the email list.
If you are local to Minneapolis and would like event announcements as well as blogs, click HERE and if you are not and would only like the blog and education click HERE.