Keep a Food Log

I don't get on the scale very often -- maybe once a week -- mainly because I don't believe that it's the best way to measure health & fitness. (Checking your body fat percentage? Now that's a bit better indicator!) However, "weight" is one of the measurements I've been tracking over the past few months, but I'm cautious about fluctuations our bodies have due to water retention or temporary dehydration. I mean, if a pro fighter can sweat out a dozen pounds in one day so he can qualify in a lower weight class, is it so hard to believe that our bodies can fluctuate a couple of pounds from day to day?

When I need to put a weight on my chart, which I had to do this week, I weigh myself for 3 days and take the highest of the three. I'm not sure why I don't go with the average. I guess it's just to make it more of a challenge.

Whatever the case, I weighed myself over the last three days and here are the results:

Sunday: 234 lbs.
Monday: 232 lbs.
Tuesday: 235 lbs.

So I noted on my chart that I now weigh 235 pounds, which means I've lost 23 pounds since the end of August.

Now I know that might not seem like a lot given the claims of all the fad diets these days. "Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!" Sounds great, but most of them basically suck. The truth is, a lot of people lose weight on those diets because the food selections are so limited that they end up restricting calories because they have no more appetite for the few things they can eat!

"Eat all the protein and fat that you want!" Sounds great, but what am I supposed to do with this stick of butter and a pound of bacon? And what about this cup of lard? Oh yeah... I forgot... I can dip my pork rinds in it.

Over the next few months, as I continue my journey to better health, I'll take the time to share what I'm doing with you. It's not overly complicated, but it is too much to share in a single post.

However, here is the first thing you should do (it's the very first thing that I did):

Start keeping track of everything that you eat and drink, every day.

I began by jotting everything down in a little notebook. Eventually I opened a free account at FitDay.com and started tracking everything online.

I'll be very honest with you: this was an absolute pain when I started, and sometimes I still have to make myself do it. BUT it's worth every second of time that it takes!

If you struggle with your weight like I did, you will probably be absolutely amazed at the amount of food that you eat! And don't, don't, don't just guess at quantities. Get yourself a little kitchen scale and really weigh that chicken breast or those fish fillets. Eventually you'll get better at more accurately eye-balling quantities, but make sure those eyeballs are wide open first!

Health & Fitness Tip #1: Keep a food log and use a kitchen scale to measure quantities.

Health & Fitness Bonus: When tracking your weight over a period of time, weigh yourself for 3 days in a row and record the average weight (or the highest weight, like I do). And whatever you do, don't weigh yourself every day. Fluctuations in water weight can be demoralizing when they're actually quite healthy and normal.

Train hard but pray harder,
Brandon Jubar