How to Improve Weight Loss with Journaling

How to Improve Weight Loss with Journaling

When your thoughts stay in your brain, they can feel a bit disorganized or unclear. When you write them down, you can now see them in front of you with more clarity. That’s journaling.

It’s kind of like if you had a messy closet. If you’re looking for a particular item, it might be tough to find in that messy closet.

If you take everything out of the closet one at a time and organize them into neat piles, it will be way easier to find what you’re looking for. You also just feel better too, knowing you’ve decluttered the closet. Well, the same goes for the brain with journaling.

Just like you can tidy up any space, not just your closet, you can also journal about ANYTHING. Anywhere from what you hope to do on your upcoming vacation, to how you feel about your co-worker, to figuring out what your goals are for retirement.

But I’m going to specifically teach you how to improve weight loss with journaling. (Not food journaling or calorie-tracking…both which have their uses, but not what I’m referring to in this post today.)

You’ll improve your weight loss with journaling by learning more about your thought, feelings, and behavior patterns. You’ll also learn how to be more intentional, increasing the likelihood of weight loss success.

You’ll even improve self-compassion in the process, which is more important for weight loss success than you may have thought.

In this post, I’m sharing just a few steps that you can easily start doing today, that won’t feel like a chore, which is key.

No one wants to feel like journaling is a chore, because I’m sure you can then guess what will happen….you’ll stop doing it. You won’t form an enjoyable habit of journaling for weight loss.

As you know, I’m all about habits, so here we go….

• LISTEN OR READ: Self-Compassion and Your Eating Habits (Podcast Episode)
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

#1 Develop a Journaling Habit by Making it Easy

I have to start out with this step, because if you don’t make the act of journaling easy, you won’t do it. If you don’t do it, it makes the rest of this blog post a moot point.

So, pick a journal that you’ll dedicate as your Weight Loss Journal. Now, I just want to assure you, I’m not going to have you count calories and keep track in this journal. This journal is for your thoughts.

Decide when and where you want to dedicate a few minutes each day (or choose specific days of the week) to journal. Then set the journal and a pen in the place that makes the most sense to serve as a reminder.

For example, if you want to journal for 10 minutes before you go to bed, then place the journal and pen in the spot you’ll be before bed. Or, if you want to do it in bed, then place it on your nightstand.

It’s important to keep a pen with the journal, because if you have to go in search of a pen, you’ll be less inclined to journal. Sounds silly, but it’s true.

So, make it easy to develop the habit by choosing the time, place, and keeping the supplies in the location you’ll need them and to serve as your reminder.

• LISTEN OR READ: Weight Loss and Your Emotions (Podcast Episode)
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

#2 Choose Specific Topics to Journal About

Journaling specifically on a few different things can create structure for you every day, which helps build the habit. It also helps you to know exactly what to journal about, making it more likely you’ll do it.

Journaling on the same topics or answering the same questions every day will help you see your progress along the way. This really helps with weight loss, because you’ll notice patterns.

You’ll learn more about yourself, you’ll see how you’re changing, and you’ll be able to celebrate your progress. So important for weight loss success.

For topics, a few examples would be to journal about what thought you had about your body today, a thought you had after you made a healthy choice, an unhealthy choice, or saw someone else eating something.

You could journal about how you felt after dinner, physically or emotionally. You could describe what your craving felt like earlier that day.

The important thing is to just pick 1, 2 0r 3 things that resonate with you. (They can also be specific questions that you’ll answer, rather than topics, if you prefer that.)

Another important note is that the journaling is not meant to berate yourself or call yourself names. It’s meant to learn, release, set intentions, etc. Things that will make you feel better overall and support you in your weight loss journey.

• LISTEN OR READ: 5 Mindset Shifts to Help You Lose Weight (Podcast Episode)
• LISTEN OR READ: Are You Using Food as an Escape? (Podcast Episode)

#3 Optimize Your Prefrontal Cortex

As I just mentioned, journaling should be used to learn, release, set intentions, and more.

Setting intentions means planning ahead. Deciding ahead of time, what you’d like to do, think, or feel. What you intend to do, think, or feel.

This will really help you improve weight loss with journaling, because you’ll be using a part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that makes more thoughtful decisions. More future-focused decisions.

When it comes to weight loss, we want to optimize using this part of the brain. Rather than the more primitive part of the brain that responds in the moment (like seeing the ice cream and eating the ice cream because you had a bad day).

When you make a habit of planning ahead, your food choices change and the REASONS why you eat change. You’ll notice that the amounts will change as well.

All of this is key to losing weight and keeping it off.

So I do recommend choosing 1, 2 or 3 topics as I mentioned in step #2 above, but also be sure to add in some planning ahead.

This can be setting an intention regarding what you’ll eat or how much the next day.

It can be setting an intention regarding a belief you’ll have about your capabilities the next day or the upcoming week.

It can be an intention such as telling yourself you’ll give yourself a compliment each day.

It can be anything you’d like. As long as it’s future-focused and it’s something that feels good to you.

• LISTEN OR READ: Thought Habits and Your Results (Podcast Episode)
• LISTEN OR READ: Why Weight Loss Feels Hard (Podcast Episode)

#4 Reward Yourself

To encourage your brain to build a journaling habit, you’ll need to reward it with something. Every behavior needs a reward to encourage your brain to do it again.

Sometimes, this can just be the pleasure that comes along with journaling. If this is the case, really remind yourself of the enjoyment you get from it. This actually helps intensify that reward.

If the pleasure from journaling isn’t quite enough for you, you can choose a reward to give yourself after say, every 10th journal entry (or something like that).

Make a non-food-related reward though. We want to get away from food being seen as a reward if you’re trying to lose weight.

I love me a good “clicky” pen, so if you’re like me, then you could even reward yourself with a new pen after a certain number of entries.

• LISTEN OR READ: Rewarding Yourself (Podcast Episode)
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

Final Notes (& More Help)

Once you start this journaling habit, you’ll really start to see how you’ll improve weight loss with journaling. It’s not just the end result of the weight loss that’s the reward either.

It’s also the insight gained, feeling better as you go, setting intentions, and everything in between that you’ll enjoy along the way.

So pick out a nice journal and pen. Commit to a time of day and location you want to do this and set the journal and pen there as a reminder. Follow the other steps and you’ll be well on your way to improving weight loss with journaling.

P.S. I can help you change your eating habits for life and naturally lose weight in the process (and keep it off).

If you’d like to see how I can help, let’s meet for a Zoom or phone date. I invite you to set that up by CLICKING HERE.