Healthy weight loss requires discipline and perseverance. Successful weight loss requires consistency in engaging in activities that will make you lose weight. The best way to keep track of your weight loss progress is by keeping an online weight loss journal. It just might be the key to achieving the healthy body you have always wanted.
Why go online?
You can create an offline weight loss journal if you wish. Try a diary, a scrapbook, and even a photo album if you wish. You can make your weight loss journal as creative and personalized as possible, depending on your preferences.
However, an online weight loss journal is more convenient because all the necessary data are already there. All you need to do is input your daily diet and activity record and you can automatically keep track of your progress. Most online journals are very easy to use so you will definitely not be having trouble handling your journal. You can even protect it with a password so that nobody ever sees your records but you.
What a weight loss journal contains
Typically, an online weight loss journal contains the basic records including calorie count, weight loss goals, and doctor visits. Placing a diet recipe in your journal can also help.
Nowadays, hundreds of websites are offering online weight loss journal accounts for free. All you need to do is sign up and the website has built-in software that allows for simple inputting of data in your part. Results will be up in no time.
o Your current body weight - this includes your arm, bust, waist, hip and thigh measurements (ideally measured every two weeks)
o Daily calorie counts - these include putting in everything you have eaten for the day. You can also write down all the negatives that you were thinking for the day and turning those negatives into positive thoughts.
o Carbs, fat, and protein
o Weight loss and goals - writing down your goals can actually make you understand these goals more. Then you can create goals and resolutions to support what you are thinking and writing about.
o Detailed nutrition for 1,000's of foods
o Long term diet analysis
Motivational tool
Apart from being a tool to track your progress, an online weight loss journal also serves as a motivational tool for you. The process of losing weight can be hard and oftentimes disheartening. If you come to the point of giving up, look at your weight loss journal and see how much progress you made. In short, your online weight loss journal is evidence of all the hard work you have invested so far. Use and look at your achievements when you are down or unmotivated.
Discipline
Keeping track of your weight loss progress is also an excellent training of discipline. It allows you to stick to a weight loss program and keep you motivated, especially if you see that you are actually making progress and are getting the results you want.
Other benefits
Other benefits of keeping an online weight loss journal include:
o Reducing stress - writing your thoughts down helps you express everything you are feeling, whether positive or negative, thereby releasing a tremendous amount of stress.
o Helping you focus - a journal helps create more personal awareness, and therefore more focus on the issues that are important to you.
o Organizing - the goals you place in your journal helps you develop discipline throughout your weight loss progress.
Be honest
Despite of the benefits, keeping a journal will be in vain if you are not being honest with what you put in. Write honest entries and put in the correct amount of calories you have eaten for the entire day. Do not think that putting erroneous facts in your journal can help you lose weight. In fact, it can actually make the entire diet program seem in vain.
Updating your online weight loss journal takes you about four to five minutes a day. So it's no hassle at all.
Choosing a journal
Choose online weight loss journals with user-friendly software that computes and analyzes all the information you type in to help give you a picture of your weight loss progress. Some weight loss journals come free when you sign in with a diet program. These types are usually coupled with group counseling and therapy. There are also journal that give you the option to share your progress with others so you can get tips and compare notes on losing weight.
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