How to Reduce Food Cravings and Improve Your Mood

Fire Up This Secret Weapon to Reduce Food Cravings and Improve Your Mood!

So, what is this secret weapon, you ask?

Paper. Say what?? Studies have shown that when you use a food journal, it keeps you accountable to yourself for meeting your health goals.

How often do you keep track of what you’re really eating and drinking?

If the answer is “hardly ever” or “never”, you might want to change that! Most people actually underestimate how much they’re actually eating and they think that they’re eating healthier than they really are. I catch myself all the time!

GET YOUR FREE DIET DIARY HERE

So, if you start writing down your food and drink consumption, you might be surprised at what you find and be able to spot patterns linked to your wellbeing. Knowing that you’re going to have to admit to yourself exactly what you ate can be a game changer when it comes to your eating habits! I know I think twice before eating something if I have to write it down!

How Food Journaling Helps Health and Wellbeing

Writing down everything you eat can help you to see why you eat in certain ways and it’s great for spotting signs of emotional eating, for example.

Keeping a food journal or diet diary helps you to see if you really are eating a truly balanced diet or not. You might think you’re getting a nice variety of fruit and vegetables into your daily diet, but a food journal will tell you whether this is definitely true. And if there is some room for improvement with your diet, you’ll soon work it out. Even a minor deficiency can become a lot more obvious when you can see at a glance what you’ve eaten that day.

GET YOUR FREE DIET DIARY HERE

You can also see if certain foods are giving you unpleasant side effects. For example, it may become obvious that you almost always get gas or bloating if you eat a particular food (like bread or dairy), but you don’t notice this with other foods. This might be a sign that your body can’t tolerate it very well, so you can decide whether to cut it out of your diet. Before you start keeping a food journal, you probably knew you were getting these symptoms but didn’t connect it specifically to anything you were eating.

How It Helps Weight Loss

According to experts, you’re more likely to be successful with weight loss if you keep track of what you’re eating in a food journal or tech apps like MyFitnessPal (my personal favourite!) which can track calories and nutrients.

Studies have suggested that keeping a food journal makes people more successful in losing weight and making sure it stays off. In one study, people who kept a food diary for 6 days per week lost twice as much weight as those who only did it for one day per week or didn’t log their food at all. Pretty impressive!

If you keep a food journal, you might notice that you’re snacking more than you’re aware of and if you also track what you’re doing at the time, you’ll probably find that a lot of it is mindless snacking and not linked to genuine hunger. For example, if you’re regularly eating while you’re watching television, it’s unlikely that you’re really appreciating what you’re eating. This can mean that you’ve eaten a lot more than you intended without even noticing.

It can also help you to spot patterns with when you eat. For example, maybe you don’t eat much during the day and then suddenly go a bit crazy in the evenings with the wrong kind of foods. Being aware of this can help you to space out your eating and keep your appetite under control.

How It Helps Mood

Keeping a “food and mood journal” goes a step further than the average food journal and also helps you to link together your food and mood.

If you can spot patterns between what you ate and how you were feeling at the time, it can make you a lot more aware of how your emotions are affecting your eating habits. Once you know this, you can take steps to start breaking the cycle.

It’s also important to log how you felt after eating. If you’re engaging in emotional eating, you may well find that you don’t feel any better afterwards and you may even feel guilty or ashamed that you indulged.

How to Keep a Food and Mood Journal

So, now you know how important a food journal can be but how do you go about keeping one? Ideally, you’ll want to fill it in every time you have something to eat or drink. You might think you’ll remember everything at the end of the day, but this is rarely the case!

Some of the questions you might want to ask yourself in your food journal include:

• What have I eaten or drunk and how much of this was consumed?
• What time was this?
• Where was I when I ate or drank this and what was I doing?
• Was I alone?
• How hungry was I?
• What emotions was I feeling? Did anything happen to make me feel this way?
• How did I feel afterwards?

You can use apps to help you track your food and these can be really useful when you’re out and about and need to log what you’ve eaten. Doing things the old fashioned way can make you more accountable to yourself though – there’s something about having to physically write it down that can make it seem more real.

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Logging everything is only part of the story though. Don’t forget to set some time aside to review what you record and spot any patterns it might tell you. This will help you to make changes that improve your health and wellbeing.

Do you feel like you need some extra help and information on figuring out what to eat, easy way to prepare meals, setting realistic lifestyle goals and feeling good? Would a month’s worth of awesome tips, videos, recipes, and handouts make life a little easier and give you some direction? If so, the 28 Day Healthy Habits Kickstartwould be perfect for you! Set yourself up for success!

References:
American Journal of Preventative Medicine “Weight Loss During the Intensive Intervention Phase of the Weight-Loss Maintenance Trial” 2008, Vol 35, Issue 2, pages 118-126

In Health & Happiness
Dr. Tara Clapp, ND

Dr. Tara Clapp, ND

Dr. Tara Clapp, ND

Naturopathic Doctor Focusing on Anti-aging and Hormone Optimization

Dr. Tara Clapp, ND is a Board-certified Naturopathic Doctor and leading authority on Anti-Aging & Bio-Identical Hormones. Dr. Clapp, ND has taken numerous courses to advance her knowledge and has received certifications in Intravenous Nutrient Therapy, Mesotherapy & Injection Therapy for Anti-Aging  & Pain Management, as well as First Line Therapy Weight Management.

Dr. Tara Clapp, ND uses specialized, leading-edge laboratory testing for better diagnostics & health.  Dr. Tara Clapp, ND has special interests in anti-aging, bio-identical hormone therapy, food and nutrition,  metabolic and hormone imbalances and digestive disorders.

Being a naturopathic doctor has proven to be an especially rewarding experience to Dr. Tara Clapp, ND as it allows her to take part in people’s transformation and realization of their health potential. Consequently, Dr. Tara Clapp, ND continually updates her skills through new courses and conferences, and uses this information to better her clients.

Dr. Tara Clapp, ND is  a dedicated and caring physician, taking personal interest in her clients’ health and life.

Dr. Tara Clapp, ND has a passion for self-development programs that push her beyond regular physical and mental performance.  Dr. Tara Clapp, ND enjoys practicing yoga and meditation, has a love of photography, and relaxes by scrapbooking and enjoying long walks with her dog.

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Dr. Tara Clapp, ND - Anti-aging and Hormone Optimization

Hi! I’m Dr. Tara Clapp, ND

I focus on anti-aging and hormone optimization.

As a naturopathic doctor, I help women achieve radiant skin, maintain an active lifestyle and have lots of energy to do what they want. But what I’m really passionate about is teaching women how to harness the power of nature to change their biology, hormones, and genetic expression so they can live happier and healthier lives and achieve their vision of their best self!

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Renew You Detox Course by Dr. Tara Clapp, ND - Start Now! Detox from home in 10 days for only $47
28 Day Healthy Habits Online Course by Dr. Tara Clapp, ND

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