Susan M. Kleiner, PhD, RD, FACN, CNS, FISSN
You've read The Good Mood Diet. You've committed to The Good Mood plan. You may have already changed your diet and your fitness routines, and even signed onto an online chat group. Why bother to record what you are doing?
The Key to Success
It's not enough to learn about it, read about it, think about it, or talk about it. Resoundingly, successful dieters claim that the most important thing that they did to ensure their success was to write down what they ate and how they exercised every day. This is how you change old habits into new ones, and in the end, that is exactly what you are doing: creating new habits in place of old ones.
This tidbit of wisdom is even supported by scientific research. We know that when people keep records of what they eat every day, they eat more healthfully, lose more weight and are more successful at keeping that weight off. And if they happen to put on a few pounds, they can go right back to recording their food and easily lose the weight again. The difference with The Good Mood Diet is that how you feel is also a great reinforcement to keeping you on the Good Mood track. After a while, how you feel will be your barometer for checking on your diet and fitness behaviors.
Available through the Good Mood Diet Club
When you download the daily log from The Good Mood Diet Club page, you'll see that I have designed the log to fit exactly with the diet plan. No time-consuming writing down of every food you're eating all day long. You just check off the foods that you've eaten at each meal during the day. If you're eating from the Feel-Great Foods list but not really following the menu plan, you can just check off those all-important key Feel-Great foods for the day on the Instant Good Mood Food Checklist. Of course, tracking your fitness is critical to feeling good. You'll be doing that on the log, too.
The Bottom Line is How You Feel
As I always say, the bottom line is how you feel. That will be the last thing that you record each day. At the end of the day, the week or the month, go back and see how you felt on different days. See how your diet and exercise coordinate with how you feel each day, day after day. The tiny bit of time that you commit to keeping a log each day will have a great big payoff.
My first client in Seattle, Melody Biringer, wrote these points about keeping a log:
Why you should keep a log:
You've read The Good Mood Diet. You've committed to The Good Mood plan. You may have already changed your diet and your fitness routines, and even signed onto an online chat group. Why bother to record what you are doing?
The Key to Success
It's not enough to learn about it, read about it, think about it, or talk about it. Resoundingly, successful dieters claim that the most important thing that they did to ensure their success was to write down what they ate and how they exercised every day. This is how you change old habits into new ones, and in the end, that is exactly what you are doing: creating new habits in place of old ones.
This tidbit of wisdom is even supported by scientific research. We know that when people keep records of what they eat every day, they eat more healthfully, lose more weight and are more successful at keeping that weight off. And if they happen to put on a few pounds, they can go right back to recording their food and easily lose the weight again. The difference with The Good Mood Diet is that how you feel is also a great reinforcement to keeping you on the Good Mood track. After a while, how you feel will be your barometer for checking on your diet and fitness behaviors.
Available through the Good Mood Diet Club
When you download the daily log from The Good Mood Diet Club page, you'll see that I have designed the log to fit exactly with the diet plan. No time-consuming writing down of every food you're eating all day long. You just check off the foods that you've eaten at each meal during the day. If you're eating from the Feel-Great Foods list but not really following the menu plan, you can just check off those all-important key Feel-Great foods for the day on the Instant Good Mood Food Checklist. Of course, tracking your fitness is critical to feeling good. You'll be doing that on the log, too.
The Bottom Line is How You Feel
As I always say, the bottom line is how you feel. That will be the last thing that you record each day. At the end of the day, the week or the month, go back and see how you felt on different days. See how your diet and exercise coordinate with how you feel each day, day after day. The tiny bit of time that you commit to keeping a log each day will have a great big payoff.
My first client in Seattle, Melody Biringer, wrote these points about keeping a log:
Why you should keep a log:
- Daily recording gives you a feeling of accomplishment.
- Looking back on a good day is the ultimate pat-on-the-back.
- Recording what you do motivates you to do better.
- Your log is the pulse of your lifestyle.
- A log helps you set goals for future improvement.
- Recording what you eat gives you the discipline to change eating habits.
- A food and exercise log helps you get back on track when you've strayed from your healthy habits.
- By keeping a log you can see that you are slowly making changes that count.
- A diet log helps you see your diet and create the balance that you need.
- A food log forces you to have variety in your diet; otherwise it looks bad.
- The best way to learn about what you eat and how much you are eating is to keep a log.