We keep track of our money going in and out of our bank account; we monitor our telephone bills; we keep a maintenance log for our car. But have you ever logged what’s going on with your body?

I know I’m doing myself out of a job here, but I advise you to ‘be your own nutritionist’ for a while. It’s amazing what you will discover about your body and your health; even more incredible are the positive changes you can embrace.

Here are some of the benefits of keeping a health journal:

1. You think twice about eating or drinking something, as you must then go to the trouble of writing it in your health journal.And remember:
   Your body keeps an accurate journal regardless of what you write down.

2. You can literally be your own nutritionist – you get a picture of the overall quality (and quantity) of your diet/sleep/exercise/hydration. Sometimes we think we are doing OK in an area, until we stand back and look at the bigger picture.

3. You can also be your own detective. Often, certain foods make us feel tired, bloated, and zap us of energy. We may actually have a potential allergy or sensitivity to them, which we are not aware of. Ongoing, this can eventually lead to something more sinister (leaky gut, auto-immune disease) so it’s best ‘nipped in the bud’ early on.You’ll be amazed at what you can discover and cure through diet and a change in your lifestyle, without having to incur medical bills or take expensive medication.
   Only YOU can know what’s going on within YOUR body.

4. You can pinpoint other factors that influence how you feel. Maybe your energy is low because your exercise routine doesn’t agree with you; perhaps you are dehydrated, or over-stressed from work and/or kids.

5. You can identify any triggers that cause you to overeat: whether that’s mindless eating or emotional eating. Perhaps certain moods or emotions set you off, or a certain taste (e.g. sugar). Once we identify the triggers that cause us to overeat, we then have a better chance of addressing and resolving them.

The ultimate goal is to focus on satisfying hunger so that our body is adequately fuelled to do the job it needs to do. To stay healthy, we need to do more than just satisfy our taste buds, or some emotion that we should otherwise deal with.

In getting healthier, I suggest making many small changes, as opposed to adopting a fad or a diet that is not sustainable. Your health journal is a fantastic tool in identifying these small tweaks, which you can incorporate into a healthy lifestyle.

We’re not only looking at what we eat, but how we eat (mindfully), why we eat (to fuel our mind and body), when we eat (when we identify hunger – not by the clock, or under social pressure).

So try this for week: note down all the things that influence your health on a daily basis, such as:

• Meals/snacks
• Number of hours of sleep
• Time and type of exercise
• Number of glasses of water
• Amount of alcohol, soda, sugar, and other specifics you want to monitor
• Any symptoms you want to track (e.g. mood, bloating, energy levels, hunger levels)

If you would like a copy of the health journal that I use with clients, then please contact me.

I can also share how you can access an online health journal I’ve developed, which can be updated from your mobile throughout your day; it can be shared online with friends or your nutritionist for review and advice.

Yours in health,

Liza

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