How Food Logs Help You Quit Sugar by Joan Kent, PhD

Food logs. Could anything be more boring? Still, I’ll argue that they can help you defeat sugar addiction – and develop an awareness of your eating behaviors.

 

1. “I Thought I Ate More Vegetables”

 

My clients may think they know exactly what they eat, but what they say is often quite different from what their food logs reveal.

 

Clients describe what they tend to eat. Those general descriptions don’t – can’t – cover extra snacks, unexpected treats, lunches out, dinner invitations, beverage consumption, and so on.

 

Food logs provide a record of all foods eaten, including the ones you’d rather forget, or small tastes and samples here and there.

 

Food logs can reveal missing food groups, such as vegetables or protein, and important food facts:  what you eat, when you eat, portion sizes, and time between meals.

 

Taken together, this information can help you balance your nutrition and control your sugar intake.

 

 

2. Logging Shows Patterns that Mess You Up

 

Don’t analyze your eating habits and patterns while you’re keeping the log but do keep track.

 

Use a log that shows an entire day’s food on one page. When you look back after a week or two, seeing your patterns will increase your awareness and help you change habits that get 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 eat too little one 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 and 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 at night. 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, and by what you eat / don’t eat during the day.

 

 

3. Logging Reveals What You May Be Hiding

 

Food logs can also reveal smokescreens – intentional or not.

 

One client, a sugar addict, submitted food logs that included precise info on every food in every meal, and exact portion sizes.

 

BUT! When it came to vegetables, her log simply said “vegetables.” She never specified which ones – or how much.

 

It looked as if she was hiding how few vegetables she ate. Was a tiny morsel of broccoli listed as “vegetables”? Was she hoping I wouldn’t notice because of all the other precise details?

 

Did she not know what she was doing? No matter, logging was helpful in getting her on track.

 

A weight-loss client told me that, on her birthday, she had eaten a slice of the cake a friend made for her. Her food log showed that she had eaten that cake every day for 5 days till it was gone. It helped to explain her lack of progress that week.

 

A third client began eating vegetables – something she wasn’t doing when she started. What a terrific outcome just from logging!

 

 

4. Logging Can Stop a Binge in Progress

 

Most clients say logging makes them more conscious of what they eat. They say it stops them from eating junk – because they don’t want to write it in their logs.

 

It’s almost instinctive to stop logging your food when a sugar attack hits. I suggest that you keep logging – even if you don’t like it. Maybe BECAUSE you don’t like it. It can stop that sugar attack cold.

 

It can also stop a binge by not letting you go “mindless.”

 

This works even if you don’t show the log to anyone!

 

It’s difficult to keep logging when you’re eating foods that sabotage you, but it can change your behavior quite effectively. The following example shows the change.

 

One client ate sugar frequently and would then binge. She’d also stop logging as soon as the binge started.

 

We agreed she didn’t have to show me the logs but would write down everything she ate during the binge.

 

Well, she did it. Her binges got smaller, and the episodes became shorter. She also quit sugar – and her weight loss moved forward rapidly.

 

A food log is a solid accountability tool, whether you show it to anyone or not.

 

For more information on conquering sugar addiction, just visit LastResortNutrition and grab your free copy of “3 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Trying to Quit Sugar.”  If you feel you’ll need more help to get yourself on track, I would love to help you! Just contact me on the site.

 

Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar.