Are you lying to yourself?

I had a very interesting thing happen to me this week.

A friend invited me to join her on www.myfitnesspal.com.  And at first, I was reluctant, I am more or less at my desired weight and I am fairly disciplined about getting exercise each day or most days.  ‘So what did I need this for?’ -  I asked myself.

One of the things this site provides is accountability.  You can link to other people and if you don't update your activities for a few days your friends can send a message reminding you to do something so you can feel supported in doing what you say you want to do diet-, weight- and exercise-wise.

So I decided ok, I can support my friend and signed up.  I entered my current weight and my goal weight, age, gender and activity details to set up my profile.  Then I started tracking my daily exercise and recording the food I ate in a very easy to use food diary - I eat a lot of Trader Joe's foods because they are reasonably-priced, high-quality, minimally-processed and conveniently these foods are already in the diary's database, very cool.  

One other really helpful thing this site does, is once you record all your entries permanently it will tell you what you are on-track to gain or lose if you continue to eat as you did that day.  Nice little bit of encouragement or gotcha to keep you disciplined.

Each time I saved my entries, the tool alerted me that I was eating too few calories per the system calculations based upon my profile.  And ironically, I lost a pound in the first 4 days of recording my food intake which I hadn’t expected and wasn’t even trying to do.  It seems, because I felt I had to be honest and write down everything I ate, I stopped snacking unless I was truly hungry - so for those first 4 days, no boredom snacking, no food unless I was willing to record it in the diary. So I ate fewer calories than I burned each day resulting in a weight loss.

All those years that I was convinced I wasn't eating all that much food; was simply a lie I had been telling myself.  Even when I kept food diaries before, no big deal, no accountability, no calories being totaled or friends watching so who knows if I even wrote down honestly every morsel that entered my mouth?  Grant it, I could lie here too, but for some reason with the possibility of my friend looking over my shoulder, I couldn't do it, I stopped eating stuff I didn't really want instead.  One of the keys in using this tool is being as honest with your amounts and activities as you can be, without necessarily measuring every item you eat, but doing good estimates on quantities of both food and exercise will help you achieve your goals.

If you are struggling with losing weight, maybe it is time to ask yourself – ‘am I being truly honest with how many calories I ate or burned that day?’  And if there is any doubt, go sign up at My Fitness Pal and invite me to be a friend, together we can keep each other strong and become the healthy fit people we know we can be!