Do I REALLY need to log my food intake?

Food Journal = Success

* Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle studied the eating behaviors of 123 overweight, previously inactive women for a year. Women who kept food journals and consistently wrote down the foods they ate lost about six pounds more than women who didn’t.

*Women who reported skipping meals lost almost eight fewer pounds than women who did not, and those who ate out for lunch at least weekly lost on average five fewer pounds than those who brought in their lunch.

The study appears in an issue of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

More insights available here!

Food journalling is extremely important. Consider this: can you accurately recall every single thing that you ate and drank exactly one month ago? We didn’t think so.

• The more frequently you track how much you move and how much you eat, the better decisions can be made regarding your solution. Ask yourself this: Is my goal short term or long term? If you answered long-term then guesswork has no place in your solution.
• Journalling is necessary if you do not have a complete understanding of food amounts and need counseling on making better choices.
• There are multiple levels of compliance with food journalling. Some clients track everything from foods eaten, calories, protein, carbohydrates, fats, and meal timing, while others just jot down the foods eaten.
• Innovation Fitness Solutions recommends journalling of some sort for the first phase to gain insight into your habits (good and bad).

Being aware of your habits and choices and having actual data can help you immensely in attaining your goals.

Tips for creating your food journal:

• Write down what you’re eating throughout the day, rather than saving it up to log at the end of the day. Also, jot down how you are feeling when you eat, and how what you eat makes you feel.

• Record your level of hunger along with the foods you eat.

• Be honest. Measure portions, read food labels, and write down both your slip-ups as well as your better meals.

"If you ink it you'll think it. If you don't, you won't."

How to do it -

Phase I - An effective method that I have employed with numerous clients is to have the client journal everything that is eaten and drank for 14 days straight. This gives the client and the coach valuable insights into their habits and choices. From there, the client can choose 2-4 days per week to journal for the next 4 weeks (this helps to maintain the consistency and aids in taking ownership over the new habits being created).
Phase II - The next phase would be to journal on Fridays and Mondays (book-ending the weekend) every week and an additional day of the week to insure that old habits are not creeping back into our day.
Phase III - Finally, the last phase would see the client journaling at least 1 weekday and 1 weekend day for at least 2 weeks of each month. This maintenance journaling plan insures that food portions are not increasing over time.

Get more info here! 90 Days to a New You

To your health,
Robert J DeVito

Fast track your personal weight loss success.

Overcoming Obstacles

Published on February 13, 2012 by Robert DeVito in Focus

 

Overcoming Obstacles

Don’t Look Back
Everyone has failures or mistakes from the past. To have success, you need to learn from your past and value those difficult lessons but do not every dwell on the past. Simply move forward and make better, more educated decisions from the lessons learned.
To succeed, you need to have dreams and aspirations. Be honest with yourself as to what you want out of life and what you want to give of your life. Allow your mind to dream and think big. Aiming low and hitting the target is not a good goal.

Create a plan of Action 
Create a Business Plan as your very first step if you are planning to build a business. Whether you will be searching for investors or not, this plan will be the blueprint to your success. The Business Plan will consist of market trends, financial planning, competitive analysis, exit strategies, marketing and promotional options, everything about your goal. When going before an investor, you will be required to have a Business Plan. This is by far the most important document of all. If your success were something personal, you would not need to create a Business Plan although a project plan would be a good option to allow you to keep track of everything involving your goal. I am not personally a fan of a complex business plan.  Keep it simple and be able to modify as needed.

Persevere
To reach success, you have to persevere. Even Thomas Edison had to learn this. When he was creating the incandescent light bulb, it took him more than 10,000 times to get it right. Keep striving even when it becomes challenging.

You need to have determination. With good intentions, there may be a close friend or family member that feels it would be better if you focused your attention in another direction. Uphold your unstoppable attitude, determined to succeed.

Consistent Application of Proven Principles will bring SUCCESS.

To your health,

Robert

What is the best cardiovascular exercise to lose weight?

What's the best cardiovascular exercise to lose weight?

• The simple answer is anything that you will enjoy doing.
• Many exercise participants create undue stress for themselves trying to find the "magic exercise" that burns the most calories in the shortest period of time. The reality is that this is only a short term solution. Your body is incredibly adaptive which requires you to change your workout (both Cardio and Resistance) on a regular basis.
• A suggestion would be to start with the exercise that you enjoy the most and manipulate/increase the intensity for 3-4 weeks. There are multiple ways to alter intensity within a cardio workout.  
• You could:
• Go slower for 1 minute then faster for one minute and repeat/
• You could increase the resistance for a short time and force your body to work harder - repeat.
• Begin to manipulate the time and intensity during these workouts.
• At that point you will be ready to change your mode and force the body to start adjusting to something new. This will keep you burning the most calories in every workout.
• Switch from your current machine to something different.
• Treadmill to Elliptical
• Elliptical to Stair Climber
• You get the idea...

Same = Same

Change = Change

Change your workout frequently.  Your fitness results will improve.