Accountability is a key ingredient in dieting. If we aren’t careful, we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are eating right and well. However, when we look closely, that handful of trail mix or that quick stop at McDonalds adds up. One way to hold ourselves accountable to our diets is documentation. Historically, this has been done through a diary.
This idea still holds up today, but the value and power of that diary have been magnified by the internet. If you log your diet and exercise through a blog, you not only keep track of your food, progress, cheats, successes and failures, you share it with the world.
By opening up yourself to worldwide observation you have created a powerful motivation to stay on track. And nowadays, finding a great domain name and creating a quality blog site is easy and inexpensive. Here are a few observations as to why starting a food blog is good for your health.
Focus
When we chronicle our activities, we keep them more in the forefront of our minds. That little slip with a handful of M&Ms doesn’t go unnoticed if we are documenting all of our calories.
If we don’t log everything we eat, it can easily be forgotten and then we wonder why we struggle with results. But when we document everything and then share it with the world, suddenly that handful of candy feels like a major decision and not merely an innocent moment of convenience.
Perspective
When we document our diets and all that goes along with that, we have written evidence of our progress. Therefore, when we are months down the road and our inner critic wants us to quit because it’s not even working, we have the written proof that our body is changing and our fitness is improving.
This can be powerful when our mind loses its willpower. Showing ourselves proof, from a credible source (ourselves) that we are making progress can keep us going. And subjecting ourselves to our audience and their feedback keeps us on track as well. Nobody likes our critics adding fuel to the fire of our doubts.
Depth
We often enter into a plan to eat better with some simple criteria: eat less and eat better. That “better” part can be vague and typically misunderstood, especially at the beginning. As we write about our food consumption and expose ourselves to our readers it becomes more and more clear that we want to eliminate preservatives, additives, certain types of foods.
Conversely we want to eat more of certain foods. This understand develops over time and through scrutiny. As we blog about our diets, we learn and adjust and refine. Every step helps us along the way and it all underpins the process and the value of continuing.
Real Fresh
As our the depth our nutritional understanding develops, it becomes more obvious that fresh foods are more nutritious. Even if we understand this passively going in, by blogging about our food choices, we subject ourselves to our own standards and those standards tend to rise.
Eventually it becomes critical that we eat fresh foods instead of processed or preserved foods. Fewer ingredients usually indicate that the food is, well, food. It seems silly to say, but eating real food and fresh food is healthier. And what we often accept as food becomes exposed the longer and closer we monitor our diets.
Preparation
One villain of our diets comes from our hectic and stressful lifestyles. When we are out and about, managing a million things and putting out fires, eating well is challenging. But when we blog about our diet, we commit ourselves to preparing better for this reality.
Food bloggers tend to prepare healthy snacks and foods that can be easily transported. Cutting up vegetables and keeping them nearby in baggies replaces those Snickers bars and chips. Keeping water on hand is a powerful solution to drinking sodas or other less healthy drinks. Thirst is often confused with hunger as well and often triggers the desire to eat. Drinking plenty of water, by having with you can be a valuable way to suppress appetites as well as keep us hydrated.
Move On
One tendency many of us have is turning one mistake into two. If we slip up on our diets, we often pile on and add guilt and judgment to the miscue. This isn’t helpful. If you make a mistake, own it and move on.
Blogging about it can be liberating, because you aren’t hiding a secret that eats away at you and weakens your resolve. If you slip, own it, document it, and move on. You’re human and so is everyone else. Mistakes and setbacks are expected. Just don’t turn a minor slip up into a major tumble.
Starting a food blog is a great way to experience more and better foods, keep yourself on track and accountable, while you enjoy learning more and more about what we consume.
