October 16, 2013
One Simple Tip to Keep You on Track with Your Diet.
The most challenging part about getting in shape is staying on track with your eating habits. What you eat makes a significant difference with the results you get from your workouts. It can either hold you back or get you where you want to be much faster.
It’s actually pretty easy to slip-up if you have a habit of over indulging on snacks, going back for seconds (sometimes thirds) at dinner, treating yourself to junk food to “celebrate” when something awesome happens, ordering dessert when you know you don’t have any room left for it (guilty), or always having food within arms reach and eating without thinking — when you’re “winging” an eating schedule.
I know most of you are thinking, “psh, eating schedule? I listen to my body. I eat when I feel hungry.” But the problem is that most people get super busy with their work, projects, kids, chores, errands, etc — they forget to make time to eat. Because of that, they either end up having big gaps of time between meals because they skip meals (which will slow down your metabolism), they start binge eating to "make up" for missed meals, or they hit up fast food out of convenience. I was guilty of all three a little over a year ago.
Is that you, too? Keep reading.
A great way to stay on track is to have more structure by writing down what you eat. This is also known as a "food log". Sounds tedious, eh? Hear me out first.
/// What You're Going To Do:
- Grab a notebook, sketchbook, dry-erase board, post-it note — whatever you want to use.
- Write down the times you plan to eat throughout the day. (I eat every 3-4 hours)
- Write down everything you eat at that time. If it helps you to write it all down ahead of time so you have your day planned out, go for it!
- (optional) Set alarms on your phone. Within a week or two, your body should be accustomed to your eating schedule and you won’t need the phone alarms anymore. However it never hurts to have it as a back-up!