5 Ways Food Logs Help You Quit Sugar? (Part 2) by Joan Kent, PhD

5 Ways Food Logs Help You Quit Sugar   by Joan Kent, PhD

 

This week we exploring how logging your food can help you quit sugar. Here’s the 2nd way:

Logging Shows Patterns that Mess You Up

Don’t try to analyze your eating habits and patterns while you’re keeping the log, but do make it easy to keep track.

One client kept his log on his phone. Each page had only one meal at a time. To compare, say, breakfast from day to day, I had to flip through three meals on each day – and memorize each breakfast because there was no way to compare the meals side by side.

Use a log that shows an entire day’s food on one page. When you look back after a week or two, seeing your own patterns will increase your awareness and help you change eating habits that may be getting in your way.

Night binges, a common problem, might result from skipping breakfast and making up for it later.

A similar calorie correction can occur if you consume too little food throughout the day and then overeat another day. “Caloric eating” tends to even out over time.

If you know you’ll be gone all day, plan convenient meals or snacks that don’t take much time to eat. Bring them with you to avoid the starve-now-binge-later trap.

A client of mine used to avoid food all day because she always binged on sugar late in the day. She thought it would help her cut down on calories overall, but her all-day “fast” was one of the reasons she binged later. Another reason was what she ate during the day.

Night binges can be triggered by brain chemistry. The nighttime increase of endorphins (beta-endorphin) increases appetite. That may coincide with end-of-day stress relief. Stress itself can result in a binge.

If you use food – especially sugar – for stress relief, it’s probably due to stress hormones and brain chemistry, not your lack of willpower. When your stress ends as your workday does, that can trigger sugar binges (or general bingeing) in the evening. It might continue for several hours.

Patterns like these are another reason a food log can help. When you see them, it’s easier to change them.

Don’t miss more great reasons that logging can help you quit sugar – right here!

For more information on conquering sugar addiction, just visit www.LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free copy of “3 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Trying to Quit Sugar.” And expert help is always available!