Journal Your Way to Success: Keeping Track of Your Accomplishments

When you’re starting a weight loss journey, keeping track of your success is essential.  There are several reasons for this.  Keeping a journal can help you with many aspects of dieting that make it a great tool.

Journaling is even more critical when you’re following the hCG diet.  That’s because when you are on this program, you need to weigh yourself daily.  This will help you to see your success, but it will also help you to stay on the program. 

Daily Weigh In

When you start this diet program, you’ll be asked to weigh every day.  This will help you to track your progress while you’re following the second phase of the diet plan.  Don’t be surprised if you’re losing as many as 2-3 pounds on this plan.

Some days you may only lose .5 pounds, and that’s okay, too.  As long as you’re losing some weight, you can be sure you’re following the plan properly.  There are a few times when you may see that your weight loss stalls.

For example, many people have a slowdown in weight loss about a week into the program.  This is normal and shouldn’t be anything to worry about.  For women, you may experience a slow down when you start your period. 

As this program is based on hormones, changes in your body’s hormones will also cause changes in the rate of weight loss.  If you’re following the program to the letter and you’re experiencing no weight loss, it’s usually a result of hormones.

In fact, women who experience a drop in weight loss or even a weight gain (as long as they’re following the program perfectly) are advised to take a pregnancy test.  This major change in hormones can cause the hCG diet plan to lose effect. 

However, the pregnancy test will only be accurate if you stop using the hCG hormone for at least five days first.  Remember, pregnancy tests are actually measuring hCG levels in the urine and if you’re taking hCG you could get a false positive.

During the maintenance phase of your program, you’ll use the daily weight in as a tool to determine how many starches and sugars you can add back into your diet.  If you gain more than two pounds in a single day, you need to decrease those sugars.

Two pounds is not very much to measure, so a daily weigh in will help you to keep track of those fluctuations.  Keeping a journal will help you to keep track of your daily weight and keep you up to date on your progress.

Keeping Track of Your Food

Most people really don’t have a good idea of how much they eat or how many calories they consume each day.  Using a journal will help you to really see with your own eyes what you’re eating.

With the hCG diet, you’re asked to restrict your calories to 500 per day.  This is very little food.  It helps to write down what you’re eating to help stay honest about your adherence to the program. 

Even eating 100 extra calories – 3 or 4 crackers worth – can throw you totally off-track during phase two.  Writing down every bite will help you to see what you’re eating and help you to remember what you still need to eat for the day.

During the maintenance phase, you’ll be able to add back all the foods you love.  However, you’ll need to do this a little at a time.  Writing down what you eat will help you to see how many sugars you’re adding each day. 

Then when you have a weight gain, you can determine where you need to cut back.  If you don’t have a record of what you’ve eaten, it will be hard to adjust your diet plan to keep the maximum benefits of your initial weight loss.

Emotions Eating You

While we like to blame our weight on bad genes, a sedentary job, or love of food the truth is that many people who are overweight suffer from problems with emotional eating.  Keeping a journal can also help you to combat these problems.

When you get a handle on your emotions and stop using food as a way to self-medicate, you’ll find that your weight loss is permanent – and even something you don’t have to think about anymore.

Keeping a journal of how you feel every time you eat can help you to see what triggers your problematic eating.  Here are a few emotions you may uncover:

·           Happiness

·           Sadness

·           Loneliness

·           Frustration

·           Boredom

·           Anxiety

·           Stress

·           Anger

·           Love

In the end, just about any emotion can lead you down the path of overeating.  Keeping a journal can also help you to stay mindful about how full you feel.  Many people eat until they feel like they are going to pop.

The result is a feeling of misery, indigestion, and weight gain.  You may find yourself saying that you’ll never make yourself feel that way again.  Then, something triggers you to eat again and you repeat the pattern.

Instead, it’s good to eat until you feel satisfied.  You won’t feel stuffed or full.  You simply won’t feel that your stomach is hungry anymore.  It takes a lot of practice to learn how to eat in this healthy way if you’re used to binging.

A journal can also help you to write about your feelings and get to the bottom of what’s causing your food addiction issues.  Perhaps you have had some experiences that have led you down the path of emotional eating.  Journaling can help you to become proactive and deal with your problem.

Using the Past to Propel You Forward

Everyone experiences hard times now and then.  When it comes to dieting, you’re bound to have times when you experience great success and then times you feel like a failure.  Being able to look back on good experiences can help you to take those tools and get you back on track.

When you don’t write things down, it’s hard to remember exactly how you solved a problem, how you felt when you lost weight, what tricks helped you to stick to the program, and what motivated you to start the hCG diet in the first place.

A journal is a record of your history.  It can record your highs and lows.  It will be a volume you can go back to when you need to seek encouragement from none other than yourself.  It can also be a tool you use to help others when they need it.

Choosing a Journaling Method

In modern times, there are many ways to keep a journal of your diet journey.  You’ll want to choose a method that fits into your lifestyle and that you will stick with.  A journal doesn’t do any good if it’s not something you can access easily and comfortably.

Paper and Pencil

An old-fashioned blank book can be a fabulous way to keep a journal.  You may be very comfortable with the type of gift books you can buy at the bookstore or even a spiral notebook that’s from an office supply store. 

Paper journals can be small enough to travel with you and they won’t ever crash the way a digital storage device can.  They can also be placed on a bookshelf where you can look upon the volumes of your life with satisfaction.

Date Book

A calendar or date book can make an excellent journal.  It already has the pages dated for you; all you need to add is the essential information.  Make sure to choose a calendar or date book that has plenty of room to write.

Digital Diary

There are many software programs available to help you keep a diary on your computer.  Many are free and can be stored on your hard drive so that only you can have access to them.  You can even password protect your journal if you choose.

Blog

One of the most popular ways to record the events of one’s life in the modern age is the blog – or internet journal.  There are many sites that host free blogs where you can personalize your page with photographs, pictures, and videos.

With a blog, just be advised that a free blog site can delete your blog at any time.  You may want to back up your information so that it doesn’t get lost forever.  You can also decide whether or not to make your blog public.  Many people like to share support through blogs.

Social Networking Site

Some people prefer to use a social networking site to share details of their diet and weight loss journey.   Sparkpeople.com is one of the most common sites for people working on weight loss and health goals.  You may want to look into setting up a free profile.

This site will also give you the ability to share information with other people on a similar journey.  You can get great motivation and support from online communities like this and many others.