While reflecting, I realized the times I was most successful with my weight loss goals was when I gave myself a visual slap in the face by writing down every individual thing I ate and the nutritional value info available to me. In doing this, I was able to see exactly how much I was eating and how many calories I was consuming. This was long before the days of My Fitness Pal, which I use to log now, but I still physically log my food in my diet/exercise log. When I first started writing down my food intake in 2009 I was shocked. I really did not realize how much food I was consuming in one day. I would fill up two to three pages for one day of eating. Seeing all the line items and looking at the grand total of my calories was a slap in the face, and I was ashamed at what I was putting into my body.
While this was difficult to see and come to terms with, it offered me the motivation I needed to make dietary changes. I started paying attention to serving sizes, and started paying attention to when my stomach was satisfied. (I should also mention, I logged my drinks as well, most people don’t realize how many calories they are consuming in their drinks).
I think it is important to know that our stomachs and our mouths can send us opposing messages. My mouth will often be like, “Mmm, that was good and salty, I want more,” while my stomach tells me, “That was satisfying, and I don’t need any more.” So when my mouth and my stomach send me different signals, I ask myself if it’s worth it to indulge, if it will make me feel sick, or if I am probably just needing to drink some water to flush the taste out of my mouth and move on with my day.
As time went on, I learned about the importance of hydration, and started tracking that too. We have all heard that 8 glasses of water is what we should be drinking for our bodies to function properly, but research has shown that you should actually be drinking half of your body weight in ounces. I need to drink about 21 glasses of water a day (330/2= 165; 165oz/8= 20.6 c water). Some days I hit it, some days I don’t even come close. But I always try to get in at least one gallon a day so I’m not severely dehydrated. Dehydration can make you think you’re hungry, when you’re really thirsty. I keep a tally of how much water I am drinking. I have a 64 oz water bottle (I got mine through herbalife, but believe other brands would sell as well), so my first goal was to drink one of those a day to make sure I got 8c in. Then I aimed for drinking two a day, which is a gallon a day. And eventually worked my way up to getting in my extra cups to meet half my weight.
Finally, write down your goals. Writing down your goals and putting them in a place you will regularly see them will keep it at the forefront of your mind and allow you to keep up on them.
My Goals:
- Drink 16-21 Cups of Water/Day (adjust with weight loss)
- Work out 3-5 times a week for a minimum of 30; allow self to rest (this is important for muscles to repair and build up muscle)
- Lose 10 pounds/month Jan-June; Re-visit goal in June.
- Keep going. Remind self: What your doing is working, so keep doing it.
- This is also a part of my mindset change. So many times in the past I would say, “WooHoo, it’s working. I can treat myself tonight,” and then I would fall back into bad habits and make things worse.
Intention Transform 