Lifestyle Performance

4 Steps to Food Journaling

Journaling or tracking your food takes time, attention, and effort. Regardless of how you do it, make sure you're making this practice fit your lifestyle, skills, and goals.

Only be as specific as you need to be for your goals in order for you to stay consistent with it. Here are a few tips to help you out;

✅ What are you eating? You can track foods pretty generally by taking pictures of them or describing your meals. To get more precise, you can track specific ingredients.

✅ How much are you eating? All your food counts when it comes to tracking. If you finish dinner and have a few extra bites as you're cleaning up, this adds up.

✅ How are you eating? When you sit down to eat, pay attention to your food. Enjoy it and let yourself feel 80% full. You can track this by noting down how and what you feel as you eat. Are you stressed, settled, or distracted?

✅ When are you eating? For a general idea, you can note the time of day you eat like morning or evening. If you need to be more precise, track the hour or the start and end time to your meal.

Have you ever tried to track your meals? Let me know in the comments👇🏽

You're not addicted to sugar
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You might’ve felt like this before. Maybe you’ve heard other people say they’re quitting sugar.
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And while I agree to a point that dialing down your overall sugar intake can be beneficial, it is probably not the sole reason why you’re not losing weight.
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Play along with me for a second here; I want you to close your eyes and imagine all the foods that you can think of when you think of sugar-rich foods. What comes to mind?
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You probably pictured things like chocolate, cake, donuts, and other similar treats 🍫🍰🍪🍩🍦🧁
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And while those foods have a heavier dose of sugar than other foods, they share some other similarities which are the real reasons why they can hold you back from seeing progress in your weight-loss journey.
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They are all very dense in calories. And since your overall calorie intake is what will dominate what type of results you see, eating too many of these high-calorie foods will make weight loss harder than it needs to be.
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The second commonality within these foods is that they’re made for overeating. I don’t mean that in the sense that these foods are addictive because sugar on its own is actually not very fun to eat when it gets to taste “too sugary” but when it’s mixed in with things like fat, eating more becomes easier to do.
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To wrap up remember that sugar *on its own is not the problem. But these hyper-processed foods can make calorie control difficult. Reducing your overall intake of these foods will make your weight loss easier but they are not inherently bad or good.
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❗️Share this with a friend or on your story if you found it helpful💪🏽

Your BEST will look different every day
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Some phrases that get touted as gospel among trainers is that you need to be giving it your best effort every day.
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The disconnect here is that everyone’s “best” looks different and it changes from day to day.
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Maybe you feel like you had the perfect day yesterday but just not feeling it today. What small action can you take that’ll cast a vote for the type of person you want to be?
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✅ Drink a tall glass of water.
✅ Get a 10 minute walk outside.
✅ Do 5 push ups or squats.
✅ Add some protein or veggies to your next meal.
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Don’t set yourself up for failure by envisioning a level of “best” that will be impossible for you to live up to. Instead, take stock of how you’re feeling right now and make the choice to take whatever action feels realistically best for you.
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Also, I’m opening spots for my Nutrition Ninja online program this week. If you’re not sure what actions you can take each day to get closer to your goals, you might be a good fit for this. We focus on nutrition while addressing both your fitness and overall lifestyle as well. If you’re ready to finally lose 20 pounds (or more) drop a comment, shoot me a DM, or head directly to the link in my bio. All new Ninjas start with a free week trial to make sure this program is right for you!