Weight Watchers wants you to know that they told you so

Glamour Magazine

Recent studies have shown that food journaling can double weight loss. I can just imagine the party and "We told you so" press releases floating around Weight Watchers' headquarters. But, there is validity to that. I finished the SELF Challenge back in May; lost 9 lbs. and 6.5 inches. I'm relatively sure I wouldn't have stuck to the plan had I not decided to blog about my experiences with magazine dieting.

I'm no longer dieting, but I still take and post pictures of my food. As opposed to keeping me from making "fattening" choices, it keeps me from making energy draining choices. Energy is the name of the game with me. Do I care about what I weigh? Sure, I'm human. But what I'm concerned most about is keeping up with a hectic schedule. What writing about my food allowed me to do was to look objectively at what I ate and how I felt and see how the two were related.

A day in the life of my digestive tract:

kim_breakfast.jpg
kim_breakfast.jpg

Breakfast:

  • Whole Wheat English muffin with peanut butter

  • Watermelon

  • Iced coffee with soy milk


kim_lunch.jpg
kim_lunch.jpg


Lunch:

  • Banana

  • Vanilla yogurt with granola and fresh strawberries

  • Cherries

kim_dinner.JPG
kim_dinner.JPG

Dinner:

  • Salad with lettuce, tomato (hopefully, salmonella-free), cucumber, avocado and balsamic vinaigrette

  • Brown rice and lentils (cooked in vegetable broth and seasoned with curry and cumin)

  • Steamed summer squash


There may have been an undocumented macaroon in there somewhere. I mean, I don't want to be obsessive right? I think that food journaling can be positive, not only for losing weight, but I also think that it can lead to some pretty compulsive tendencies. If you're prone to that, I say tread lightly. I don't blog on Sundays because sometimes I just want to eat sans camera, and I've had some pretty interesting dating experiences whipping out my camera, but all in all I've actually enjoyed it. The added bonus being that my mother, who asks me what I ate daily, now had a place to go everyday to see that I was indeed capable of feeding myself like a grown up. So, if you have a nosey mom, or just really like photographing food, it can't hurt right?



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