September 2021
Jacqui Lewis- BHSc Nutritional and Dietetic Medicine
Benefits of Journalising Your Weight Loss for Better Health
If you were to chat to just about anybody who is successful at anything at all, most of them would tell you that they write things down, whether it be their initial goals, keeping a log of what they’ve done along the journey so they can more easily see what’s worked and what hasn’t and so on. The same applies to losing weight and getting into shape.
If you want to be successful in your weight loss journey, you’ll vastly improve your chances if you have a food and weight loss goal journal.
Why It’s Important To Keep a Journal Of Your Journey
For starters, keeping a journal helps you to plan your health schedule on every level, including your daily meals and exercise regime. It will become your guidebook on what you have to do and when and serve as a constant reminder. It’s always better to have some sort of a plan, even if it’s only rudimentary than no plan at all.
Just as important as having a plan mapped out for diet and exercise is to log your progress. Your weight loss and fitness goals won’t be achieved overnight. It takes time, so you want to see how you are progressing along the way. Your journal will allow you to see, at a glance, how you are doing and you can also make additional notes as you work out things you can do to improve.
As you’re chipping away at your goals and log the results into your journal, seeing progress will serve as a motivator to keep going and if at any stage progress seems to be stalling, you’ll have details you can comb through to figure out why, or work out ways of how you can get out of that stall.
These are some of the main reasons why it’s a good idea to journal your weight loss, health and fitness journey.
How To Make a Weight Loss Journal
Now that you know why it’s a good idea to maintain a journal, let’s take a look at how to make a weight loss journal and what you should write in it. You could title your journal: “My Weight Loss Journey Journal” or something to that effect.
Remember, everything that’s mentioned here is merely a suggestion and you can set up your journal in a format that suits you, but this information will give you enough of an idea to get you started.
You’ll first want to create a section in your journal that’s focused on your diet and meal plans. In this section, write out what you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. You might vary the menu from day to day over the space of a week, keeping your meals healthy and balanced and high in protein. It’s a good idea to map out your meals so you’ll have a better chance of sticking to your eating plan.
Another section of your journal can be devoted to your daily exercise routine, including allocating time slots for exercising. If you make a point of planning exercise at certain times of the day, you’ll feel more organised, in control and far more likely to get those exercise routines done.
Something else you could write in your journal is your health, fitness and weight loss goals. You could just simply list them out and have a timeline to reach each goal.
Most of your journal from this point is going to be filled with your daily, weekly and monthly progress, as discussed earlier. You can write down what you ate (including whether you cheated on eating), what exercise you did, how you’re feeling physically, psychologically and emotionally and anything else you think is pertinent to your weight loss goals and plan.
Add Quality Supplements To Your Diet
Something else you’ll want to consider adding to your nutrition plan is vitamins and minerals in the form of quality multivitamin tablets, capsules, or supplements. This will ensure you’re getting all the nutrients you need to help you achieve your goals.
Check out the BN Multi for some of the very best vitamin supplements available today, or get in touch with us if you have any questions.
Jacqui Lewis
BHSc Nutritional and Dietetic Medicine