Thinking about losing the excess weight? Have you considered keeping a weight loss journal?
Most people think of weight loss as reducing food intake and exercising more. Of course, this is what you need to do for weight loss.
However, those who have tried before know that weight loss is not something that you can complete overnight or in a week or a month and get back to your previous lifestyle.
Weight loss needs sustained effort over a long period, perhaps in some way or the other for the rest of your life. And, the weight loss plan doesn’t remain the same forever.
In the weight loss journey, you may make unbelievable progress one day but get stuck on another. Whether your strategy is working or you are facing a roadblock, you will have to revise and make necessary changes to your dietary habits and daily exercise regimen.
Maintaining a weight loss journal can help in keeping track of the progress. It also provides the necessary motivation to make you stick to the weight loss routine.
This article tells you how a weight loss journal can help and what to include in it. You will find here weight loss journal prompts to help you overcome hesitancy or writer’s block. You will also find here a printable weight loss journal pdf to get you started.
Benefits of a weight loss journal
One of the biggest weight loss challenges is to keep track of your progress. Remembering what you ate and what you did over a long period is impossible without a diary or a journal.
As you make big or small progress in your weight loss journey, sustaining your interest and keeping yourself motivated is also not so easy.
Moreover, you may have to revise your weight loss strategy as and when the situation demands it. You can do this more effectively if you have the right data with you.
All these and more can be achieved with weight loss journals.
Here are some more reasons for keeping a weight loss journal.
- Have clarity about your weight loss goal
- Breakdown goals into smaller achievable intentions
- Plan your dietary needs and exercise patterns
- Keep track of your daily activities
- Help to assess the progress
- Identify unhealthy habits
- Keep yourself motivated
- Pin down hidden obstacles in your path
- Collate different aspects of weight loss for better strategy
Things to include in a weight loss journal
Besides hardcore facts about your eating habits and exercise regimen, you can also include your weight and body measurements. Your BMI, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels may also be included in the weight loss worksheets if you consider them pertinent to your weight loss strategy.
The weight loss journal is the right place to record your daily emotional status and energy levels. Understanding your stress levels and sleeping pattern help plan your weight loss.
A fact-only weight loss journal may not be as effective in keeping your motivational levels high. Recording your weight loss goals in detail is found to be useful to keep your focus intact throughout the journey. Moreover, understanding your thoughts and feelings and your daily trials and tribulations of sticking to the weight loss plan can help your path to the goal easier and trouble-free.
What is the right weight loss journal format?
Keeping it as simple as possible should be your approach for the journal format. If you make the format too elaborate, you may follow it in the initial bout of enthusiasm. As days and weeks go by, you will see your interest in both journaling and weight loss waning. You need to stay alert to this and revise your strategy to make it more appealing to sustain your interest.
You can use a notebook or diary to record the daily facts and thoughts. If you are more comfortable with the electronic version of record-keeping, you may opt for an excel spreadsheet, online diary, or a specialized weight loss app. Or else, you can use a journal template to record your daily activities and thoughts.
Why do you need weight loss journal prompts?
Daily journaling is no easy task. Even if one half of your mind urges you to do it, the other half will pour cold water all over it. When you sit down to journal, one of the biggest hurdles you may face is writer’s block. Your mind goes blank and you don’t know where to start or what to write about.
Prompts are mostly in the question format or it asks for your input on a specific topic. It gets you started thinking in a particular direction. That is all you need to get your creative juices flowing.
50 weight loss journal prompts for daily journaling
- Why do I want to lose weight?
- What are my weight loss goals?
- How will my life change after weight loss?
- How is the excess weight affecting my life now?
- Do you think fitness, weight loss, and good health are interlinked?
- What can I do to help lose weight today?
- Which unhealthy habit can I give up/bring down today?
- Which healthy habits can I improve today?
- What can I do more to aid weight loss?
- How can I get myself moving more today?
- Are my exercise habits good enough?
- What am I planning to eat today?
- Am I eating healthy enough?
- How far have I progressed in my weight loss journey?
- How am I planning to lose weight?
- Has my plan worked until now?
- What can I do to make my weight loss plan successful?
- What can I give up to lose weight?
- What should I continue doing to lose weight?
- Where am I struggling with my weight loss plan?
- Do I have a healthy relationship with food?
- What can I do to improve my relationship with food?
- What kind of relationship do I want to have with food?
- Am I happy with the progress so far?
- Am I able to relate to the new me?
- If I can lose weight as much as I want to with ease, how much would I want to lose?
- How can I implement some of my past successes in my weight loss plan?
- Do I consider weight loss liberating?
- Can weight loss change the real me?
- What do I think about my ability to lose weight?
- Do I have any mental blocks about losing weight?
- How do I want to feel about my eating habits?
- Why do you think you will succeed in weight loss?
- What is your view on the ideal body weight?
- What do you think you can achieve with ideal body weight?
- What are your favorite activities to aid weight loss?
- Would you engage in these activities if you don’t have to lose weight?
- Do you believe that weight loss affirmations can help?
- What are your favorite foods if you can eat whatever you want?
- How many of these foods fit in your weight loss strategy?
- Do you enjoy the healthier versions of these forbidden foods?
- List the healthy foods that you enjoy the most. Why?
- Did you face any health complications as a result of your excess weight?
- Did you feel ashamed of your weight? How did you deal with it?
- Are you losing weight to be able to love yourself again?
- What role did the environment play in your developing unhealthy habits?
- Is your current environment favorable to losing weight?
- Which new food habits helped you lose weight?
- Are you an emotional eater? What role did your emotions play in weight gain?
- Are you scared about losing weight?
Bottom line
The decision to lose weight is a big one. We usually associate weight loss with counting calories, eating salads, and spending hours working out in the gym. Maybe this is the reason why weight loss plans fail in most cases. Disregarding the emotional aspects of weight loss can make a difference between success and failure.
Journaling can bridge this gap and make your weight loss attempt easier to handle. Moreover, with journal prompts ready at hand, you are making this even simpler.
Don’t forget to download the free weight loss journal template here.
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