food journal

How to Use Instant Gratification for Weight Loss

I stood on the scale in the pale, sterile exam room and slowly lowered my head to read the dreaded display. My polite half-smile melted away as evil numbers made my heart pound and my cheeks hot.

Why is it that when I get weighed at the doctor’s office it’s more painful? At home or in the gym, my weight is just a number, like an old, annoying friend.

But at the doctor’s office, that stupid number betrays my weaknesses. It’s the tattle tale that tells my doctor I haven’t done anything for my body in the 12 months since I was last here.

“So, you’ve gained some weight…” the doctor says innocently, but I feel the daggers of blame piercing the flabby parts of my body.

The guilt can be unbearable, as if the President of the United States gave me one simple job to do but I got stuck on Facebook and didn’t do it. Now I sit in the over-lit, scorching oval office for the State of the Union Address, the camera’s on, and sweat pours down my face as the whole country wants to know why I suck so bad.

Then I let the excuses fly, and even I don’t believe them as they bounce off the white, antiseptic-smelling walls.

“We moved and I hurt my knee and then the kids started school and I changed jobs and eating healthy is so expensive and we just got back from vacation…”

But all the best excuses in the world say the same thing:

My health is not a priority.

WHOA. Back up there a minute. I think about health and fitness and weight and EATING all the time, so don’t tell me it’s not a priority!!

Oh no. Suddenly I’m a cartoon coyote and all I can do is stand there while the falling anvil crushes my soul to the ground.

It’s true. The hours tick by and there are so many other things that are more urgent. And more fun. And taste better. Damn it all. Why is weight loss so hard? Two words.

Instant Gratification

I have a set of white blinds in the window above the sink in my kitchen. They have a layer of grease, dust, and splashed soap and food covering them.

Every time I deep clean the kitchen I want to scrub them, but that would take about 3 hours on its own, and I don’t have time.

I have a great plan, though. If I clean 2 slats a week, it will be done within 3 months.

I’ve been saying this for about 5 years. I never clean even 2 slats.

Does this sound familiar? Why do we do this?

The answer is in our brains.

When we receive an immediate reward, the reward center of our brain dances. It feels good.

When we do something with a delayed reward, we don’t get that same high.

So the job is too big to do all at once, cleaning 2 slats doesn’t get the job done, and there is no benefit that I can recognize right away. So I never do it.

Unfortunately, working out is exactly like this for most of us.

Oh sure, tell me there are “endorphins” and the “runner’s high” and blah, blah, blah.

This is true, but when you haven’t been working out, that first few times just suck. It hurts. It’s hard. And there are no immediate rewards. Your fun brain is not dancing.

And of course, food is even tougher.

Food gives instant gratification, and certain foods (donuts, anyone?) make the brain dance more than others. It’s hard to fight such a great reward.

Even when we have a goal, an image, a skinnier version of us in our minds, it is almost impossible to overcome the lack of instant gratification in a long, slow weight loss program.

So, here’s the trick:

Get instant gratification from daily goals

When I lay my head on the cool, fluffy pillow at night, when the quiet air allows my mind to think through the day, I often hear things like “I can’t believe I ate all those Cheez-its. And I was going to go to the gym, but I worked on writing that article too long and it needed to get done. Oh well.”

But when I meet even a small daily goal (and on hard days I set teeny ones), I hear things like “I’m so glad I met my goal today. I am going to do that tomorrow and go to the gym!”

Success is addictive. Quick wins are like cigarettes. One leads to another, which leads to another, and next thing you know, you are addicted and your body gags when you don’t get that fix.

Except the result is a healthier body instead of lung cancer.

Quick wins through daily goal setting is the key to achieving long-term weight loss goals

There are many ways a food journal can help you be healthier. My food journal has a section for setting daily goals. This is how I trick my brain into dancing.

Here are 5 examples of small goals I use for quick wins.

Eat only one donut instead of 5
Substitute one sugary beverage with water instead
Eat breakfast
Eat a fruit or vegetable with every meal
Fill out my food journal all day

Set small daily goals to get instant gratification and bragging rights. So the next time your doctor is shooting blame daggers at your flab, you can say with confidence that most days you work on at least one thing to be healthier, whether the scale shows it or not. So there.

How to Use a Food Journal to Unlock Better Health

by Jadie Aranda 3 Comments

It doesn’t take willpower to lose weight and be healthy. It takes knowledge of how to work your own body.

In my post How to Use the Scientific Method for Superior Health, I made a comment I’d like to clarify. I said “Your body, your responsibility.”

I hope you didn’t roll your eyes when you read that. I meant something completely different than the popular view that people who are overweight just aren’t trying hard enough or using enough willpower.

It Doesn’t Take Willpower to Crack a Safe

Learning your body is like cracking a safe. Say your body has a 10-digit code you should use for optimal health. There are literally 10 billion combinations that could be right for you. For a lot people, 0123456789 works. OK, great. When that doesn’t work, we start grabbing at other numbers at random.

This website says try 0213456789. Damn, didn’t work.

This doctor says 1230456789. Shoot.

1234567890? Oh my gosh, I’m never going to get this!

But when you start listening to your body, it’s like this:

When we can listen to our body, it shows us the exact combination. Unfortunately, we still have the mindset that we need sheer willpower to try every recommended combination until we find the one that works for us. Most of us never find the optimal combination this way.

“It’s not that hard, you just have to work at it”

How do you know, not-that-helpful person giving advice? Taking care of our bodies is a unique experience unlike anyone else’s.

For example, I will never be a pro baseball player. No matter how hard I train, how much willpower I use, or how much money I spend, I will never have the ability to play pro baseball. It takes a certain amount of natural ability to be able to play at that level in addition to the blood, sweat, and tears.

But people with a natural ability to play sports may say things like “It’s not that hard, you just have to really want it and work at it.” Bullshit. No matter how good I get, I will never get to that level.

Being fit and healthy seems like a singular goal, like being a pro baseball player. You’ve got these ripped dudes telling you “Work hard and you can look like me.” Diet gurus that still tell you “Calories in vs. calories out.”

And worse, the people who put an MD after their name just to say “Take garcinia cambogia, you will lose weight or your money back!”

I’m sick of trying all these one-size-fits-all “combinations” that don’t fit me. I’m tired of failing at someone else’s diet and then feeling like I just didn’t have enough willpower to see it through. I’m finally ready to work smarter, not harder.

How to use your Food Journal to Crack the Safe

I created the Bite Me Food Journal to finally put that proverbial stethoscope to the safe. To crack a safe, you have to listen to one number at a time, learn it, then move on. I feel the same way about learning the body.

If you try to change too much at once, you will be overwhelmed and won’t be able to really hear what’s going on. The Food Journal allows you to get an idea of the current combination you are using. From there, you can start tweaking and listening, learning as you go.

After reading this, you may already know what you’d like to experiment with first. If so, great!!
If you don’t know where to start, go for some quick wins with daily goal setting.

A food journal is a great research-backed tool that can help you crack into your body’s own code. Download your Bite Me Food Journal today and get started!

The safe example really captures how I think about figuring out my own health. What do you think of the “cracking the safe” analogy? Write in the comments below and let me know! I really love to hear from you!

5 Ways a Food Journal Will Make You Healthier (Free Download!)

by Jadie Aranda 33 Comments

I understand the benefits of keeping a food journal, but I’ll admit I’ve always hated counting calories. If I want to eat a donut from the break room, I don’t want to think about how many calories are in it. Because it’s not on the side of the box.

And I don’t have to know how many calories are in it to know that I shouldn’t eat it. But I eat it anyway.

Then I can’t put it in my food journal because I don’t know how many calories it has. So I skip it, then wonder why my food diary doesn’t match my tight pants.

But here’s a newsflash:

You don’t have to count calories to get the benefits of a food journal!

There are many studies that show tracking our food can help us be healthier. Here are five of my favorite ways food journaling makes us healthier (without counting calories).

1. Help you lose weight

There’s no denying the scientific studies showing people who track their food lose more weight than people who don’t [1]. And for those of us who are carrying extra weight, even small weight loss can lower our risk for certain diseases. The great thing is that food journaling can help weight loss by helping you limit calories, but also just by helping you be more attentive to what you are eating. Remembering what you ate earlier in the day may help you eat less at later meals [2]. That sounds simple enough to me!

2. Increase personal accountability

The truth is you are the only one who decides what you eat. Tracking your food with a food journal helps you be honest with yourself instead of letting yourself forget. Forgetting what we eat happens a lot more than we realize, which can cause us to eat more or make unhealthy choices more often. Keeping a food journal can help us avoid this trap.

3. Find your food triggers

Most of us suffer some uncomfortable side effects from eating, from seemingly harmless symptoms such as bloating and gas to more extreme symptoms such as allergies or migraines. While some allergies are very obvious (if you have a peanut allergy, you probably know it), other effects can be very subtle. Keeping track of what you eat can help you notice patterns and triggers so you can avoid them and be healthier.

4. Find your emotional triggers

Many people turn to food when they feel certain emotions. I am totally guilty of emotional (and mindless) eating. My biggest emotional trigger is overwhelm. Others eat when feeling sadness, anger, confusion, or boredom (another big one for me). Emotional eating often means binge eating, which is uncomfortable in the short run and very unhealthy in the long run. Keeping a food journal can help you find the connections between your moods and what or how much you eat.

5. Motivate you to reach your goals

There’s nothing like seeing progress to make you feel good about your goals and motivate you to push yourself harder. Keeping a food journal can show you how far you’ve come on your health journey. Journaling can help you set small daily goals that add up to big results.

Being able to see progress toward my daily goals is one of the biggest benefits of food journaling for me. So much, in fact, that I have a special section in my food journal to write my daily goals at the beginning of the day so I can benefit from greater focus. You can download my personal Bite Me Food Journal to start realizing the benefits for yourself!

There are so many other ways keeping a food journal is healthy for our bodies and our minds. The only way you can find out how journaling will work for you is to try it! Download the Bite Me Food Journal today and give it a try. Let me know in the comments if you find the journal useful!