![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/food-diary-150x150.jpg\" "\\"food")
My team receives several emails a week with this statement in it.\u00a0 The way the emails typically end is with the writer asking for help or advice as to what else can be done.<\/p>\nMy team receives several emails a week with this statement in it.\u00a0 The way the emails typically end is with the writer asking for help or advice as to what else can be done.<\/p>\n
On rare occasions I get a letter from someone who actually admits that he or she tries to watch their food intake but they really struggle with it.<\/p>\n
This is one of the key elements that diet pill producers and surgeons try to capitalize on\u2026the inability of people to be honest with themselves about what they are actually eating, and how much they are actually exercising.
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\nKeeping a food diary is only helpful if what you are writing on it is accurate.\u00a0 That means you have to be honest about how many servings of something you are actually consuming in reality. This includes drinks as well.<\/p>\n
A good example of this is a client and friend of mine who was battling IBS and her weight at the same time.\u00a0 I thought this to be a bit of a contradiction since a lot of times true sufferers of IBS wind up being underweight due to diarrhea and constipation, but I agreed to advise her on how to isolate the problem.<\/p>\n
She asserted over and over that her diet was healthy and she exercised every day.\u00a0 What she didn\u2019t include was her definitions of \u201cexercise\u201d and \u201chealthy diet.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had seen a clinical study once where a food therapist (a dietician specializing in food addictions) followed an overweight woman for 3 days, recording everything she observed the woman eating.\u00a0 The client was told also to record everything she thought she ate.<\/p>\n
She was also instructed to record her exercise patterns, and the therapist made notes of her own observations during the 3-day period.<\/p>\n
The difference in the two versions of recordings of food and exercise were startling.\u00a0 The overweight woman maintained she only ate 3 to 4 average-sized meals per day, and always included vegetables and fruit in every meal.\u00a0 She figured she was only consuming about 2,000 calories a day.<\/p>\n
She also recorded about 4 hours of exercise a week for herself.<\/p>\n
The therapist, however, actually took some photos of what her client was eating, collected up the food receipts from her eating out excursions (which were at least once per day as opposed to the 2 times a week the client reported she ate out), and re-created a typical food day for the client.<\/p>\n
In re-creating the typical food day, she purchased everything she saw her client eat in one day, and laid it all out on the kitchen table.\u00a0 The table was rather large and every inch of it was filled with food.\u00a0 Beige food\u2026not the bounty of vegetables the client thought she ate.<\/p>\n
The calorie estimate for 1 day was over 4,000 calories because every item was fried or otherwise prepared in the unhealthiest way imaginable.<\/p>\n
Her vegetables? They were fried potatoes, battered onion rings, and guacamole. The little bit of salad she ate was drowning in high-fat dressing and shredded cheese.<\/p>\n
The fruit she insisted she ate was never in the 3 days\u2019 time in its raw form.\u00a0 It was baked into fast-food pies, topping on ice cream, or mixed into sugared cereal.<\/p>\n
The exercise she reported doing wasn\u2019t done.\u00a0 The only actual exercise that would count by most therapists\u2019 standards was the 20-minute walk to work she did once that week (it apparently rained the other 2 days.)<\/p>\n
So why the difference? Either the client was completely dishonest or she was just way off-base.\u00a0 It turns out that it was truly the latter. She honestly had no idea that her reality of her diet and the truth were so far apart.<\/p>\n
In the study, she was taught to accurately record serving sizes, including HOW an item was prepared and not just what the item was.\u00a0 For instance\u2026a piece of fish formerly recorded as 1 serving was in actuality 1 order of a fast food meal deal with 3 servings of battered fish.<\/p>\n
Her \u201cvegetables\u201d were reworked as well, meaning she wasn\u2019t allowed to count French fries, hashed browns, onion rings, or anything with dressing on it as a vegetable.<\/p>\n
Faced with the new rules, her diet completely changed and she was able to start dropping pounds because of the new calorie intake, and new water requirements. She didn\u2019t even have to increase her exercise apart from walking to work at least 4 times per week.<\/p>\n
My friend I referred to earlier did this kind of diary for herself and realized she was doing the exact same thing.\u00a0 Her IBS? It really wasn\u2019t. It was constipation as a result of poor diet.\u00a0 Once her diet improved, her fiber and water input directly impacted her output and she felt much better immediately.<\/p>\n
I bring this up because I suspect many of the emails I receive with reports of \u201cI watch what I eat\u201d are not entirely accurate.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean those people are lying or living in a dream world, it just means they need to find a better way of \u2018seeing\u2019 what they eat.<\/p>\n
Food diaries can be a critical tool in the battle to lose weight, but only if used properly.<\/p>\n