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Jenn J Replied:
Day 5: Magic notebook
Every night before going to sleep, Judy pulled out a spiral notebook and recorded her thoughts from the day. When she looked back over her progress during the past year, she concluded, "When I journal, I stay on track. It helps me catch the times when I'm slipping into emotional eating or getting discouraged with my efforts. Then I can make changes and correct these issues right away."
Get a "magic" notebook
For many people, recording personal thoughts or actions each day provides a lot of insight. It also serves as an outlet for emotions and struggles around weight-loss efforts. If you enjoy writing, experiment with tracking your thoughts and ideas around food and eating. Feel free to write as little as one sentence or as much as several pages.
On the other hand, if you don't find it helpful to write things down, don't force yourself to do this. But do keep a notebook handy as a quick tool for jotting down ideas about managing your eating patterns.
Eat it another time
Just because you think about a food doesn't mean you have to eat it. Whenever Jennifer got a craving for a specific food such as cheesecake, she wrote it in her notebook. She said, "By writing it down, I take it out of my head. I tell myself I don't have to think about it anymore because it's recorded and I can always return to it later."
When a food thought crosses your mind, remind yourself that you don't have to act on it. Instead, write down the name or even a description of the food, and then anticipate the pleasure of eating it sometime in the future.
Practice the skill of observing food cues, then letting them go. When you walk into a movie theater, notice the smell of popcorn, then forget about it. If it helps, record these cues in your "magic" notebook. Tell yourself, "That popcorn smells good, but I'm not going to eat any right now. I'll simply postpone it until another day."
Today's Tasks:
Whenever you think about a particular food you want, write it down in your notebook.
Plan that you'll eat it at another time. If you wish, add the amount you'll have and how often you'll fit it into your program.
Stretch the times farther apart for eating this food. You may discover that after a while, certain foods don't seem as important to you as they once did.
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