Keep a food journal

I am not very good at keeping a journal so this has been a challenge for me but I have discovered that doing this can actually be fun! When I first started trying to loose weight I had my husband make me a journal sheet. I had him put the date, weight, time, food and calories, water, exercise, etc on the page. I then printed out 3 months worth of sheets at a time. The problem with this journal was the size. I put the sheets in a binder and left it opened on my kitchen table. It was always in the way! I recently went to Hobby Lobby and found a cute little journal for $3.00 that is half the size. It works great and doesn't take up as much space. Back to journaling, what I really like about it is the fact that I can review what I ate over the past few days, weeks or even months. I might even discover a new twist on a recipe that I had forgotten just by looking back. Each day I post the date, amount of calories alloted, weight, water intake, food and calories and amount of exercise and what form of exercise. I layout my journal like a check register. I start at the top with the amount of calories I have and then I deduct each time I eat something. I start my day with 1200 calories. (This may not seem like a lot but it works for me. I'll explain the math in another blog on how I came up with that number for me) I am not huge on breakfast but I do eat it. I usually have a 200 calorie breakfast. That can be a bagelful, egg white and cheese sandwich (my favorite) or an Activia yogurt (LOVE that stuff!), etc. I usually, but not always have a snack between meals that is usually a 100 calorie snack. Lunch for me is usually around 300 calories. I try to save my most of my calories for the evening so I can end the day with a good dinner. I try not to eat after 5pm but I usually have at least 100 calories saved up for the evening just in case I feel the urge to have a snack. I also drink at least 64 oz of water a day. When I first started I hated to drink water so I would buy Crystal Lite and drink it. I know some of you are freaking out right now because of the artificial sweeteners in Crystal Lite. I felt like it was more important to me to get in enough fluids each day than worry about the side effects of artificial sweeteners. Just a note, I have since converted over to only drinking water. This is what works for me. If you do not like to have a big dinner than have a big lunch. The key is figuring out what works for you.