Write vs. Might

I almost took a swig of my husband's Dr. Pepper 10 this morning. Almost. Theoretically, as a wellness teacher, I am vehemently opposed to all forms of soda, especially those containing fake sugar with whacky chemical side effects.  As a single girl, I knew better than to drink the stuff. But I married a Southern boy from Alabama, where Dr. Pepper and sweet tea are preferred to water by a ratio of 999:1. I would like to think of myself as a victim of Jon's attempt to brainwash me into becoming a real Southern lady. That soda was just part of a larger ploy that includes learning to enjoy BBQ date nights, accepting the fact that watermelon can be salted and potato salad can be warm, and adopting Crimson Tide football as a second religion.  While we have made a lot of breaks from the bad habits of our youth, the complete and utter elimination of the bubbly (that's Baptist-speak for "soda," since we don't do champagne) hasn't been one of them. Honestly, I'd found it sneaking into my diet way more than I'd care to admit here on paper.

Which is exactly why I took a pass on it today. You see, today I am starting to keep a food journal for the first time in a long time, in partnership with my health class students who are doing the same. This week, we are just supposed to practice writing down everything we eat and drink so we know where to clean up our habits next week. But there was NO WAY I was going to let them see that I--their revered, beloved, disciplined, amazing health class teacher (I just spoke in, like, a thousand hyperboles there)-- had a random swig of soda on Day One of food journaling. Besides, I already know with the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I will have plenty of examples for them of what NOT to do when trying to lose weight. I've got to save face where I can, my friends.


Apparently, I'm not the only one who will change their food decisions just so they look good on paper. It looks like there may be more to this ego-trip than meets the eye. The big wigs at Kaiser Pemanente Hospital conducted a study in 2008 which showed that those who kept a food diary lost twice as much weight as their less literary counterparts.  Why? Because it's so easy to think you're doing all right with your food until you see it  written down in black and white. One of my students said it best: "If you don't write it down, it didn't happen." That bag of Cheetos? Don't know what you're talking about...  Cookies for dinner? A second slice of cake? Not my problem... But, while you can pretend that those unrecorded forays into the fridge didn't happen, that Shakira song with those lyrics, "My hips don't lie," will come back to bite you in the...um, hips.

And just in case you have a personal grudge against Kaiser Permanente and refuse to validate their study, I'll give you the results of a similar study: this one showed that you had a measly 20% chance of succeeding in your weight-loss goals if you didn't keep some sort of a food journal. Right now,  while I am pursuing a vanity goal of getting down to my wedding weight for our fifth anniversary in April, I value the 80% chance of success that journaling gives me. But, I've been meaning to work on this goal for awhile; I just haven't gotten around to it. I've put it off until it was convenient, which basically meant I let myself cheat when the Spirit led me, because there was zero accountability to myself or anyone else for what happened.  I absolutely know that writing it down makes all the difference between starting on that goal today and putting it off until some other time. I either "write" now or I "might"  start on the goal tomorrow.

Well, food isn't the only thing worth making lists of. I am off to accomplish the other tasks on my to-do list today. Which no longer includes Steak N Shake Happy Hour.

Bonus Tip: Looking for a techie way to keep a food journal? Try MyFitnessPal.com, which even offers a great app that tracks your daily GL intake! If you don't know what GL is, you clearly didn't pay attention to my previous post. And you are probably at Steak N Shake drinking that half-priced milkshake.