Keeping a food journal or weight-loss/food blog is a great way to lose weight. When you write down everything that you eat and drinkin a day, your are less likely to cheat! So if you need that little extra boost, then this article is perfect for you. It may be a complicated to start, so here are twelve tips on how to keep a food journal.

1. Get a Portable Journal…

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they first start out is the type of journal they buy. You don’t want a large and bulky food journal, you want a to buy a small and probable journal, that can fit easily into a purse or shirt pocket.

2. Go Digital…

A great tip is to use technology for your food journaling. If you’re not into carrying around an actual paper journal, try using your PDA, cell phone, or laptop to help you keep track of what you eat. There are many websites, such as Fit Day or My Calorie Counter , that will help you keep tabs of what you eat online, and I’ve heard of people making neat little graphs and charts with that information.

3. Write As You Go…

One thing that makes it easier, is to write each item down as I eat it. You may want to wait until the evening and try to remember what you ate, but that’s just too hard. You aren’t going to be accurate on portion sizes, and you’ll forget little snacks or treats. So, record things in my journal throughout the day.

4. Focus on Portions…

At first, you might just write down what you ate. For instance, you could write down I ate a “bowl of cereal” or “M&M’s”. Well, a bowl of cereal could be anything from 0.5 cup to 2 cups, depending on the bowl! And, of course, who knows how many M&M’s were in that vague description… could be 100 calories, or it could be 1000!

So, a great tip is to measure and record the exact portion you’re eating so you’ll be most accurate. This is how you are really going to get your food journal working for you.

5. Don’t Cheat…

This isn’t exactly what you probably are thinking it means. When dieting I feel that it is good to have a small cheat meal, or a cheat snack. It helps you curve those craving, anyways if you are still doing 95% of your diet, isn’t that better then 0%

What I mean by don’t cheat on your food journal is write everything down! If you have had a bad day or went out for dinner and splurges, write it down. You don’t have to feel ashamed of recording everything like half a pint of chocolate chip ice cream you may have eaten before lunch. The best part about a food journal… if you are hones, you can see and follow trends and patterns in your eating habits and be prepared for that next time.

6. Not Circumstances…

Whenever you do have a cheat moment and go off my diet, make a quick note in your journal of the circumstances. For instance, did you eat that ice cream when I was PMSing? Or, did you have a few beers after a stressful day at work? Having those little notes in your journal will help you when you are looking back over the week to see how your emotional states change your eating habits.

7. Eat At Home…

It is so hard for people to accurately judge restaurant food. You probably have a hard time determining portion size (and I’m not going to whip out my measuring cups at the restaurant table), and you will almost always under guess on your calories. Plus, many restaurants don’t release their nutritional information . So, it helps me be more accurate in my food diary records if you can eat at home more often.

Here’s a great article from USA Today about the benefits of eating in.

8. Don’t Forget Drinks…

Always record what you drink in your food journal. You will want to do this for two reasons. Number one, you don’t drink nearly enough water, and increasing water intake is a goal and will help you to loss weight. So, record how many glasses of water to help me keep track and prevent you from getting dehydrated. Also, things like cocktails and coffee drinks can actually contain a lot of hidden calories. So, don’t forget to record your liquid calories, too.

9. Review Your Entries…

A food journal doesn’t help much if you never use the information you write down. So, a great tip is to designate a time each week to sit down and review your food journal information. I would recommend Sunday night before bedtime. It will help you notice trends, make new goals for the week, and keep track of how you doing.

10. Set Goals…

It is very important to make your food journal work for you. A great way that you can do this is by setting goals and using your food journal to help mark my progress. For instance, If you’ve got a goal to drink at least 6 glasses of water a day, then you can put a little check in the top right corner of each day’s page when you drink a glass. Using a food journal in goal setting can really help you get there faster!

Here’s a great guide to setting weight loss goals from About.com.

11. Get Saucy…

No, I don’t mean be rude in your food journal… I mean, don’t forget the little things like sauces and condiments that often derail our diets. If you are not recording things like ketchup, sour cream on the side, salad dressing, etc. Then, you are not recording a lot of hidden calories, and these can add up to hundreds per day! So, be careful of that common mistake.

12. Add In Calories…

A great way to increase the value of your food journal is to write down the calories in each item you eat or drink. I can tell you that this isn’t easy. You may have a hard time because you didn’t know how many calories are in each thing you ate, and it was time consuming to look it up. So, you can buy a tiny book that lists common foods and calories like this one. Now, you can quickly add up your calories for the day and see if I’ve got enough for that ice cream sundae.

Once you start using a food journal you will be amazed at how many calories your are eating in a day, and what your eating habit are!

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When trying use lose weight, exercises is always an important aspect, accompanied by foods that burn belly fat. You can put these foods into two groups; these are high protein foods and those containing large amounts of fibre.

It breaks down to one simple fact, fat burning foods are foods, that require more calories to burn the food than that are actually contained in the food. These foods are sometimes referred to as calorie negative foods.

Below is a list of fat fighting foods:

Apples: The pectin in apples blocks the cells ability to absorb fat. Secondly, the fibre helps to make your feel full, thus eating less. Thirdly, it encourages water absorption from the food which helps in releasing, built up fat deposits from your body.
Vitamin C rich fruits: Citrus fruits such as limes, lemons, oranges, guava, grapefruit, papaya, sweet limes, tangerines and tomatoes are loaded with Vitamin C and fibre. They also have fat burning properties that allow them to be categorized as fat burning foods. Vitamin C is essential for the body’s ability to process fat, and at a faster rate. Secondly, it stimulates the body’s ability to create carnitine amino acid, which speeds the body’s fat-burning capacity. Vitamin C has the ability to dilute your body’s fat reserves and make it less effective. Thus helping your body in releasing the fat reserves.
Calcium Rich Dairy Products: Foods like milk, cheese and yogurt will boost your body’s ability to burn fat.
Nuts: A very and easy snack food, that helps to keep you feeling full, while increasing your body’s ability to burn fat.
Chillies: Food that is rich with capsaicin such as chillies and cayanne peppers, helps to increase your metabolism, burning more calories. Capsaicin is called a thermogenic food, this type of food burns extra calories for approximately 20 minutes after eating food containing capsaicin.
Cardamom: Is very similar to capsaicin, it is a thermogenic herb and increases your metabolism when eaten.
Garlic: Another excellent fat burning food.
Curry Leaves: This is an amazing Indian food, the secrets reason that they are fat burning foods, is that it flush out fat and toxins, all while reducing fat stores in your body.
Proteins: Protein rich foods such as low calorie dairy products, beans, whole grains, oatmeal and eggs require more energy to digest than fat.
Green Tea: A lot of studies have shown that drinking green tea, revs up your body’s metabolism, so try to drink a few cups a day.

So in order to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume; however, skipping meals will do the exact opposite and slow down your metabolism. You can create the necessary calorie deficit by eating calorie negative foods. This will help you reach your goals of burning off belly fat.

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