Have a think for a minute about how many times you have chased gimmicks (shakes, pills, magic formulas, keto, paleo, 3-day purge, Jenny Craig, Isogenics, cabbage soup diet, etc) and doing these things might work for some people but either they have mixed results or all the weight piles back on.

It can get overwhelming chasing fads and the ‘right’ way to lose weight can’t it? I want you to focus on the things that DO work and have proven to work through solid research to help you become healthier and reduce your health risks; but the things that do work require a change in behaviour. They require you to learn a new skill – the skill of nurturing your body, the skill of listening to what your body needs, and the skill of eating for your age and stage.

So how can we rid ourselves of the overwhelm? By doing what does work – tracking your food. Let’s think about why this works because let’s face it, there is nothing fancy about entering your food into an app is there? But tracking works because it pushes us out of autopilot and into accountability and self-monitoring and awareness.

Mindless eating is easy – grabbing a few more nuts than we should, eating a few of the kid’s chocolates or biscuits. Having a bag of chippies for the ‘family’ while watching TV. Today’s society has got us eating on autopilot, eating when we feel like eating or eating because it’s ‘time’ and we aren’t even aware of how much we actually eat. There have been many studies that have found that even dieticians underestimate what they eat.

Tracking your food via MyFitnessPal or other food tracking apps (that are all free by the way), shows you the truth of your choices rather than a vague idea. Studies have shown that tracking alone helps you to lose weight. But the biggest barrier to tracking is honesty. Fudging the numbers and portion sizes can be a thing (yes, I’ve been there!) One less piece of pizza tracked, ‘I only had one scoop of ice cream’ etc. All this will do is reduce the numbers in the app but your body is counting calories even when you aren’t, and you can’t hide your choices when it comes to weight loss.

Food trackers are not about feeling guilty about your choices but a reflection of your future and if you are struggling with guilt, I can give you a ton of help around this, so do get in touch. Choose your tracker, find your goal and make the changes that work, nothing fancy, nothing overwhelming, nothing gimmicking or any quick fix. Just consistent, repetitive behaviour changes.