Food Journal – Do I have to do this?

So I start reading the Lose It for Life book and I meet resistance right away. It wants me to keep a food journal. I’m supposed to write down everything I eat. It sounds like a lot of work so I put it on the back burner.

As I go through the workbook for the chapter, I am reminded of what I’m not doing. Okay, I’m not in charge anymore, I’ll do it. I get a small notebook and start. September 18, 2010 is the first entry. I have done this every day since. Everything that goes in my mouth gets written down.

The idea behind a food journal is to give an honest account of what one eats. It’s easy to fool yourself. We can forget all the things we consume through grazing – this and that as we pass through the kitchen, etc. It also helps with the why of eating. Am I hungry or am I bored? Am I hurting and hoping that food will soothe?

After two months of keeping this diary, I started thinking of calories. How many calories should I have each day and how many am I getting? I knew I was eating less but I was curious. I went to a bookstore and found an easy to use book that listed the calorie content of most foods. It’s called The Ultimate Calorie, Carb, & Fat Gram Counter. Now I was looking like a true fanatic. On October 19, I started writing down the calories of what was in my food diary. I found it very interesting and not too hard to do.

In mid-November I found a program for my Ipod Touch called MyFitnessPal. It automated the whole diary process and synced to a website called myfitnesspal.com. With over 660,000 foods in its database, it made entering food very easy and I could track my progress, exercise and get nutritional information as well. Available for Android also, it’s all free. You can use the online journal by itself too.

A food journal has helped immensely in my weight loss journey. Studies show that people who track their food lose twice as much as those who don’t and are more likely to keep it off. Another study showed that the best predictor of weight loss throughout the first year was the number of food records kept per week.

Another benefit to me is being able to budget my calories. If I am going to go out to dinner for example, I can cut back through the day so that at the end of the day I have not exceeded what I should have eaten. On New Year’s Eve I took my boys to Jim’s Burger Haven and we had giant double cheeseburgers and I had onion rings on the side. At the end of the day I hadn’t exceeded my calories, although as expected I was a little over on fat grams.

Here is a good example why it is good to know the calories of food choices. Two weeks ago I went to Applebee’s for dinner. As I looked through the menu I saw they had a section of entrees that were less than 550 calories. All of them looked very good. As I browsed the menu I saw a picture of Crispy Orange Chicken. It looked good! I looked it up and found it was 1550 calories. I settled on Grilled Dijon Chicken & Portobellos which was 450 calories. I was saved 1100 calories by that choice. By the way, if I want to lose a pound per week my recommended calorie intake is 1550 per day. Here was an entrée with that many calories in one meal. I now understand one of the reasons why I was gaining weight. I also understand the way to lose weight.

I have learned a lot about various foods through this process and have a better idea of the ones that are healthier than others. My first objective on this journey is to be healthy. As I restrict calories I want to make sure I have a balanced diet. There are many foods I avoid but I don’t feel at all deprived. I enjoy finding better choices, eating in moderation and actually enjoying the things I am eating.

If you would like to see how this works, here is a link to my online diary. Use the password healthy. You can see my foods, exercise, weight loss, etc. It’s a great setup and very easy to use.

Well enough for now. Later I will tell you some of the other things I have learned and the benefits I have enjoyed.

Here is a link to posts about my weight loss journey.

Philip

Persistence in Prayer

I tell you, even though he doesn't want to get up and give him anything because he is his friend, he will get up and give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.
Luke 11:8

I heard this verse in Church this morning. I wondered about the word persistence so I looked it up. It speaks of something much more that persistence. It’s very powerful; speaking of someone without modesty, someone who knows no shame, without a sense of what is proper, is reckless and with complete audacity.

And that is how God wants us to be with him; to come boldly and with abandon to his throne of grace. It’s beyond persistence. It’s a behavior that would annoy most of us. Someone acting crazy as they beat on the door, demanding to be heard, demanding an answer to their request.

Everything Jesus ever said about prayer can be summed up in one word: ask. Be bold enough to ask in this way.

Philip

SLED – How to persuasively present the prolife message

Here is a way to share the prolife message in a clear and compelling way:

Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you had no right to life then but you do now. Stephen Schwarz suggests the acronym SLED as a helpful reminder of these non-essential differences:

• Size: You were smaller as an embryo, but since when does your body size determine value? Large humans are not more valuable than small humans.
• Level of Development: True, you were less developed as an embryo, but why is that decisive? Six-month olds are less developed than teenagers both physically and mentally, but we don’t think the former have less of a right to life.
• Environment: Where you are has no bearing on what you are. How does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from a being we can kill to one we can’t?
• Degree of Dependency: Sure, you depended on your mother for survival, but since when does dependence on another human mean we can kill you? (Consider conjoined twins, for example.)

In short, humans are equal by nature not function. Although they differ immensely in their respective degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature made in the image of God.

The above comes from the article Clarity Not Gadgetry: Pro-Life Apologetics for the Next Generation by Scott Klusendorf.

Click to get Scott's Book The Case for Life.

Philip

Lose It for Life

One of the first good things I did on my weight loss journey was to admit to a group of friends that I knew I needed to lose at least 50 pounds. I was out of the closet. Of course, anyone who looked at me knew I needed to lose weight but of course people don’t talk about those kind of things.

One of those friends asked if I wanted to borrow a weight loss program he had. I reluctantly said yes. I wondered what it would be. Was it some sort of psychological mess? Was it a weird diet?

The first thing I started to do after my admission to God and others that I needed to lose weight was to cut down on the amount of food I was eating. I tried to put less on my plate and didn’t get seconds. I also quit cleaning off the plates of the rest of the family when we had something I really liked. I wasn’t thinking about nutrition or healthy eating at this point. The first small change was eating less. It was something I could do and I could live with it.

I really did want to succeed in this new way of life. There was one time many years ago that I tried to lose weight. I did a lot of exercise and tried to cut down on food. I lost some weight but didn’t get too far. I kept the daily exercise going for about a year and a half and then a family crisis came along. The exercise stopped and over time the weight returned. As the years went by I kept adding. I was up to 211 when my journey backwards began.

So back to the program my friend gave me. It was called Lose It for Life by Stephen Arterburn. I looked it over and was pleasantly surprised. The book claimed it was the total solution – spiritual, emotional and physical - for permanent weight loss. It wasn’t a diet either. Instead it seemed against dieting and was for making healthy changes that will last.

There was a book, workbook, CD’s and DVD’s. I bought a copy of the workbook for myself and started going through it as I read the corresponding chapters in the book. I was amazed at what I was learning and how I was being challenged.

I started thinking about why I ate too much. Why did I choose quantity over quality? Why did I want to be stuffed at every meal? When did this behavior begin?

If you are interested in checking out the Lose It for Life program, here is a link to the whole package on Amazon. You can also get the book and workbook separately.

The changes that were happening in my life helped me lose weight but also helped me to develop healthier habits. I will talk more about the specifics later.

Here is a link to posts about my weight loss journey.

Philip