if you've been keeping track of all the food you've been eating over the course of four or five days, you may have amassed quite a list. if you haven't already, the next step is to create a chart. you can use excel to create a real spreadsheet if you're technically adept, or if you're like me, you can draw lines on paper :).
make sure your chart has these categories down the side:
red
orange
yellow
green
blue/purple/black
white
brown
processed/artificial
across the top, put the days of the week or the dates.
using your list, put check marks in your chart for each color food you ate. for example, i'll use a good approximation of what my daily list might have looked like when i first tried this process:
coffee with cream (600 am)
banana (9 am)
mickey d's hamburger (plain)
french fries
coke (all at 1130 am)
ham sandwich (2 pieces of potato bread, 2 slices of honey baked deli ham with butter)
potato chips
coke (230 pm)
chicken breast
rice
mixed veggies (corn, peas, carrots, lima beans)
lemonade (made from real lemons) (600 pm)
hot chocolate (830 pm)
this is what my daily food chart would look like:
red
orange - carrots
yellow - corn, banana and lemonade
green - peas and limas, hot chocolate and coffee
blue/purple/black -
white - hamburger, chicken breast, ham
brown - roll from burger, bread from sandwich, rice
processed/artifical - french fries, cokes, hamburger, ham, rolls from burger, bread from sandwich, hot chocolate, potato chips
you can also add a separate category for fats, if you like, and this is where the cream and butter would be listed.
from a chart like this, i'm very quickly able to see how much processed food im eating, and how many colors im missing, at least for that day. while its great i have three colors with at least one entry, im very heavy on the yellows and the greens. im totally missing red and blue, and my choices of white foods aren't the best choices i could be making either.
on the plus side, i notice that i am eating fairly frequently, at least through the later part of the day - one of my tendencies was to forget to eat until i was so ravenous i wouldn't be able to stop myself. so one of my important shifts was to start reminding myself to eat something more nuitritious than coffee before 9 am.
what does your chart say to you?
4 comments:
I cannot wait to line this out. There will only be two greens. Spinach from last night and lettuce on my burger:)
Now that things are starting to even out a bit - I'm going to get somewhat "organized" and try your list for eating and add some exercise on my list just to keep everything (and me) on the same page so to speak.
I can't wait to make one food chart. it is right After making the food chart and scribbling down can make us ever of what color food we are missing. Great idea.
annie, I made a chart of my typical day (I tend to eat the same thing most days for breakfast and lunch), and I am missing lots of colors!
I know you said that one could put things in two categories, thus your hamburger is both "white" and processed," right?
Where would I put cheese, pecans, soy milk, craisins, energy bars, cookies, chocolate?
I need a special category for sweet things I shouldn't eat!
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