"I ate how much?!" This was my reaction after the first week of my 30 Day Experiment: Food Journal. I had no idea I ate so much until I spent a month diligently charting everything I was putting into my mouth. A bag of chips here, a cookie (or 4) there. It is amazing how often I found myself snacking between meals and not always the healthy kind of snacking. "It's okay, because I have a fast metabolism". This is the lie I have told myself on countless occassions to justify the extra slice (or two) of pizza and the piece of cheesecake after a hearty burger from my favorite health food restaurant, Red Robin. It's no wonder I tipped the scales at 30 lbs over my target weight. As is the case with all of my 30 Day Experiments, I set a couple intentions for this experience and I was pleased with the results.
1) By charting my daily activity, I hoped to get an accurate baseline measurement of where I stood when it came to my daily eating habits so I could then be able to make improvements. This is a principle I learned from my good friend, Roger Seip. He has repeatedly reminded me that only by knowing what your baseline is can you then experience improved results. Or, as Roger so eloquently likes to put it:
[tweet]What gets measured accurately, improves.[/tweet]
2) Would simply being conscious of what I was choosing to eat impact my ability to shed a few extra pounds?
Well, it took a couple days to see the pattern in my eating.... Simply put, I eat all the darn time and I make a lot of unhealthy choices everyday. This was a powerful discovery for me because by forcing myself to chart each and every thing that I ate and drank, I did become much more aware and that made a big difference. By the end of the 30 days I had considerably reduced the amount of "unhealthy snacking" and often found myself choosing veggies (yikes) or fruits to fill the gap caused by the reduction. I know it's good because my doctor said so. :)
Oh, and yes I did lose weight. Now, the results are slightly skewed 'cause over the course of the month that this experiment ran, I was also completing my 30 Day Experiment: A Salad a Day, and am currently, 15 days into my next 30 Day Experiment: Run Everyday. I am sure that these have also influenced some of the 14 pounds I have lost over the course of this last 30 days! Either way, I'll take it as a good sign of progress.
Lesson: What gets measured accurately, improves.
Next 30 Day Experiment: Run Every Day in May