Food Diaries

I took about three weeks off from tracking my food and it was one of the smartest things I've done all summer.

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Logging your food is a proven way to reach your weight loss goals. Many respected fitness experts, including Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, recommend keeping food diaries. Trainer Bob might be a vegan but he CrossFits at Brick so I trust his judgment, and I love me some Jillian even if she can't push press a 55# bar. There's been a lot of information circling about timing your eating and fitting your macros and eating for your body type, all of which requires some kind of food diary. It's a good habit to get into.

Unless it starts to drive you crazy.

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Tracking everything that goes into your mouth isn't going to help you if you forget what it feels like to be hungry or satiated. I always felt hungry because I had lost that connection with my body so for a few weeks, I ate what I wanted when I wanted. Did I make the best food choices? Not always. But I also learned that I was eating much more for breakfast than I needed and probably not enough at dinner.

I fell into a familiar trap where I become obsessed with accuracy and start choosing packaged foods over fresh meals because I can track them more easily. When I think about this rationally, I realize how ridiculous it is to avoid a healthy homecooked meal or a paleo-delivery meal because I don't know how to exactly breakdown the ingredients. Now I feel like I have hit reset and I'm ready to start logging my meals on MyFitnessPal regularly. I just have to remember that a food diary can be good enough and not perfect.