Why would I keep a Food Diary?
Whenever I start working with a new client, or start a new series of classes, one of the important first steps is to keep a Food Diary. I see the Food Diary as a Behaviour Change Tool. A tool is anything that helps us do the job at hand more easily. This Food Diary is a tool, a behaviour change tool. It is a tool to help you to record information.
In this article I am going to focus on just one of the key reasons for keeping a Food Diary:
Almost everyone I have met who claims to have been a serial dieter has the same difficulty distinguishing between these three things: what is real hunger, what is a desire to eat and what are cravings.
Real hunger is when you have not had something to eat for some time and your stomach is empty.
The desire to eat is when there is food available, it smells good and so you eat, even though you are not hungry.
Craving is an emotional and psychological urge to eat - and this can be intense.
What do you think? Are you able to identify the difference in yourself? Most people believe that they are able to distinguish between the three sensations - real hunger, desire and craving. What many clients find when they start to use the Healthy Wealthy Food Diary, is that things are not as clear as they thought. What might be identified as real hunger, may well be some thing else. Some people have reported that they have completely lost contact with the sensation of real hunger.
This is why the Healthy Wealthy Food Diary is so useful. Please register for a template of the Healthy Wealthy Food Diary so that you can keep track for yourself. I suggest you aim to complete the Healthy Wealthy Food Diary for a day or two to begin with.
The sort of information you will be recording is date and time and what you plan to eat and what you actually eat, how hungry you were before and after eating, and other observations about the day, mood etc and there is also space for physical activity - or intentional movement.
Try to take an attitude of exploration or experimenting with your first attempts at using the Food Diary. See it as your Helper, a behaviour change tool.
If you have been a subscriber to Healthy Wealthy e-zine you will have read the first 2 articles in this series which are about Being Mindful of HOW we eat and The importance of Eating Breakfast. It is useful to have read these articles before starting your Healthy Wealthy Food Diary. If you are a new subscriber, the articles are available on my blog, blog.ingridlouise.com
There is so much more to understanding how powerful the Food Diary can be. I recently conducted a Tele Class "The Role of the Food Diary to set you up for Successful Sustained Weight Loss" and it is now available as an MP3 recording at the Healthy Wealthy Shopping cart. Please click here to be taken to the Shopping Cart.
In this Tele Class I cover everything you need to know about how and why to use the Healthy Wealthy Food Diary for your best result.
For some clients just using the Food Diary will be enough for them to "get started" with creating new healthy eating habits. Awareness is a great "first step".
Other clients require more information, and then coaching and support to implement the necessary behaviour changes for them to reach their goals. I conduct regular Tele classes and provide the MP3 recordings, and am available for one on one Coaching programs.
Over time, we have had feedback from our clients letting us know how invaluable the Food Diaries are. We know how important self monitoring and recording are to successful change processes. And after all, that is what we are here for - to change some old unhealthy habits and identify and maximise existing healthy habits.
Have fun with the Healthy Wealthy Food Diary, and I look forward to hearing your stories !!
Posted by Healthy Wealthy at 10/18/2009 12:36 PM 
Categories: Healthy Wealthy e-zine
Tags: cravings food diary real hunger desire to eat behaviour change eating healthy famine reaction weight loss
Categories: Healthy Wealthy e-zine
Tags: cravings food diary real hunger desire to eat behaviour change eating healthy famine reaction weight loss
what a good idea!
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This article raised several other issues such as social and psychological aspects of food diary that suggest further research opportunities.
One of the major concerns of an individual should be his healt, but
unfortunately health is one of the things that is given less attention and was also taken for granted. Health is wealth, a good health gives an
individual a lot of benefits.
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Thanks Wendy, for your comment and totally agree; my whole inspiration for creating Healthy Wealthy is for people to understand how important Good Health is. Using a Food Diary to be aware of what we are eating is only one small part of Good Health. The interesting thing you raise about taking health for granted, is that people lose track of what Being Healthy means to them, the incremental changes can be too subtle to notice. And before they know it, there is a new level of health, somewhat less than before. My aim to help people realise that Good Health is indeed our true Wealth, and how to achieve, gain, regain Good Health for themselves.
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