food journaling

I started food journaling again yesterday. I haven't done that since I was losing pregnancy weight, but it really was the tool that always helped me during those periods. And, since Christmas, I've been about five pounds heavier than I like being. 

Five pounds isn't much, I know, but it is the difference between some of my clothes fitting comfortably and all of my clothes fitting comfortably, and I like my clothes fitting comfortably. :) Anyway, enough to say: I know food journaling works for me, and I also know that now is an appropriate time for me to use that tool.

The fun thing is, this time, for the first time, I'm food journaling online. I remembered that once I tried to sign up with Sparkpeople to use their food journaling software, but they didn't let me because I made the mistake of telling them that I was nursing. Oops.

But, I'm not nursing now, so now I'm using their site. I gotta say, it's a ton of fun. For someone like me (and I'm not saying you should do it if it's not your thing, or not the sort of thing that's helpful to you), all the charts and keeping track make it into a game, and I'm really enjoying myself (must be that J). It's also really interesting, because you can do things like look at a pie chart of your daily calories by the food they came from. It really emphasizes how few calories most produce has!

I had to turn LOTS of options off when I signed up though. No, I don't want your emails. No, I don't want to join the message board. No, I don't want to measure my waist. No, I don't want to keep track of how many glasses of water I drink. No, I don't want you to plan a strength-training routine for me. But I was impressed by how many options there are, and how customizable the software is. You can even track non-weight-related goals, and I'm thinking of using that feature to keep track of my page count daily (writing-related goal).  (I should mention, for those who might be interested, you can turn off any of it you want to, so you could use, say, the goal-tracking part without using the calorie-counting or weight-tracking.)

Anyway, this seemed like an appropriate place to share this. I usually just keep track of exercise stuff here, but I thought I'd mention a food thing, since it really is the other half of the equation, at least for me.

-Jess