Caloric accountability: how mutual food journal sharing can lead to weight loss

December 20, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

They say that diet is over half of reaching your weight loss goal.

But you know what they also say?

That being held accountable increases your chances of reaching any goal.

So why not combine the two? If you’re one of those “I’ve lit’rally tried everything” kinds of dieters, then you’re probably not unfamiliar with a food journal. Lots’ve us veteran victual counters have counted on these before. Cataloging calories in and out. Writing down how much we’ve eaten that day. When we ate. What. But you wanna know the problem with keeping a diet diary to ourselves?

It’s that it’s too easy to miss certain things.

Which’s why acquiring an acquaintance to be part of the nosh counting process can help immensely.

See, a snack rationing pal can serve a number of purposes. The first? Well, by having someone hold you accountable, you become more likely to even keep up with it. (You probably have had a food diary – but you probably also spontaneously stopped doing it along the way, no?) When you have a calorie comrade with mutual goals, it makes the both’ve you want to keep reaching for those goals for one another. Sometimes, just knowing that you’re in this with somebody else can help you stay on top of your game.

And it helps when that person’s close to you – speaking to you, uniquely. Why? Because hearing their story unfold can help inspire your own fitness path, yes. But the nice thing about playing problem-solving ping pong, is that you get to talk to someone you A.) know is listening B.) know can relate, and C.) isn’t being paid to do either – they legitimately wanna be there ’cause they’ve got a common interest with you too.

Other times, it’s not even about them. Sometimes (and this goes for any “shared problem”, really), even just hearing yourself say certain things out loud to someone else is what can help you break through a given mental block (or, ya know, denial). And that can help you suddenly access that path to whatever your latest goals are.

(Hearing how ridic your non-logic sounds out loud is a legit eye opener… even if you only have one eye.)

Then, finally, there’s the fact that, while we might gloss over our dietary shortcomings or miss them all together, your fellow foodie’s got the advantage of third party, unbiased insight. That means they might just see something that’ll help you lose that final few pounds. Example? Back when I was doing exactly this with a friend of mine several years ago, she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t losing weight. She spent hours on her elliptical. Then, one day, when I asked her what kind of food the calories she was listing came from, we saw the answer. There was a lot of processed, refined sugar, trans fat type’ve stuff getting shoved in her gullet. Stuff that’s tough for your body to process. Stuff that’s a ton tougher for your body to burn off. Once she began reducing her intake of even just a few of these things, though, she broke through that weight-loss wall and came out the other side a size smaller.

So, if you find that you’re faltering on the food end of fitness, put yourself on the market for a calorie counting comrade. Try letting your Facebook friends know that you want a pound dropping pen-pal, download one of the many accountability fitness apps out there, check in on a “fat to fit chat” chat room, or even just sit in on a local Overeaters Anonymous meeting. Even if you don’t identify as a food addict, it is free, they do give great advice, and everyone does care about everyone else’s problems. Because much like fitness relies on the quality of the calories you put into your body, the type of advice you ingest to get (and keep) you there – can be just as helpful.

Plus, the only thing better than losing weight, is gaining a friend as you do it.