Honesty Is The Best Policy

I have made a commitment to track all my calories in a food journal because that seems to really help me stay on track. It helps me be honest with myself and also it shows me how easy it is to eat extra calories throughout the day. Many years ago before I ever started making an effort to lose weight I would serve myself heaping bowls of food and then take extra bites out of whatever I was serving myself. I would serve myself gigantic bowls of ice cream (enough servings for about three to four adults) and then I would take a few more bites out of the carton before putting it back into the fridge. Same with dinners, after polishing off a heaping plateful of spaghetti, I’d vulture over the sauce pan eating a few more large bites of the meat sauce. Eating enough really that if it were measured out, it would be like eating an additional serving but in my mind I hadn’t gone back for seconds because it never touched the plate. (Oh the lies we tell ourselves!) Fast forward to nowadays where I track everything that goes in my mouth. I love my spreadsheet full of food choices; it makes me feel so on top of things and organized! Yesterday, I grabbed three almonds out of the canister just because I was in the mood for something salty but I had already used up all my cals for the day. For a second I hesitated jotting down those almonds in my food journal. I figured, “What’s three measly little almonds? They’re hardly anything at all!” but in the end I decided I would write them down. It’s part of my “Just because you didn’t write it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen” motto. After doing the math, I realized those measly three almonds registered in at ten calories. Not ridiculous but wonder if I decided to eat three almonds every time I opened the pantry door but didn’t record them because I figured that they weren’t worth counting? Knowing me, I’d probably eat a few hundred calories extra and then moan and complain about how I was eating so good and so on track and the scales weren’t moving and blah, blah, blah. If in the future I do hit a rut it’s nice to go back and look at the food journal and find the weeks where things were working good. But it doesn’t help me at all if I’ve fudged the entries. So I’m going to continue to embrace my inner anal-compulsive geek who loves spreadsheets and sum formulas for now. She might come in handy later on if the going gets tough!