Article 13: How Much I Ate, Let This Be a Record

Record how much was eaten.

While the "112" rule and the 4-hour limit seem simple, they are not so easy to implement. There are several main problems: First, we are used to eating haphazardly, meaning our mealtimes are not fixed. For example, breakfast might be at 8 am today, but tomorrow, if you wake up late, you might skip breakfast altogether, resulting in overeating at lunch. Second, another form of haphazard eating is inconsistent portion sizes and food types. For example, you might cook dinner at home today, following the "112" rule, eating a moderate amount of carbohydrates, low-fat meat, and plenty of green vegetables, but tomorrow night you might suddenly decide to go out for fried chicken with friends and drink a large cup of bubble tea. Third, life is full of random events. For example, work might require overtime, disrupting the planned "112" diet; or a school assignment might need to be completed that day, requiring an extra late-night meal, breaking the 4-hour limit rule. Fourth, strictly adhering to the "112" rule and the 4-hour limit rule means you're very likely to need to prepare your own meals, which places stricter demands on groceries. Work and life are already busy enough; now, having to squeeze in time to go to the supermarket and farmers' market without prior planning will inevitably result in an empty refrigerator and ultimately, ordering takeout.

So in this section, we will introduce a very effective tool to help you implement the "112" rule and the 4-hour limit rule. This tool is the food recorder.

There are three reasons for using a food diary: First, according to extensive psychological research, a highly effective way to change certain behaviors (such as quitting smoking, quitting drinking, losing weight, or reducing interpersonal conflict) is to record whether and how often you engage in these behaviors daily. Even without consciously trying to change these behaviors, simply recording them is enough to induce behavioral change. The underlying mechanism is that through recording, we become more self-aware of our behavior and are more likely to make healthy and beneficial choices. Therefore, recording your diet itself makes it easier to achieve a healthy diet. Secondly, our number one enemy in weight loss is the yo-yo diet. As we mentioned before, binge eating has a certain cause. It could be due to excessive dieting that day, or it could be caused by external influences or negative emotions. If we don't keep a record of our diet and collect data related to it, we won't know what happened when binge eating occurs. In other words, when we make a mistake, we won't even know where we went wrong, so how can we correct it? It's like going to a computer repair shop; they definitely need the computer's error log to prescribe the right solution. If we don't keep a food log, we can't figure out why we can't eat healthily, what factors prevent us from adhering to the "112" rule and the 4-hour limit, and thus we'll stagnate. Third, healthy eating requires a lot of preparation, not only in terms of meal times but also in the planning of food purchases and preparation. Bringing lunch to work sounds easy, but it's difficult in practice! Especially in today's fast-paced and high-pressure society, we can't eat healthily without advance preparation. Therefore, a food log not only helps us record what we eat that day but also helps us plan what we eat the next day. In your food log, we will ask you to make a preliminary plan for the next day to remind yourself.

The food log consists of two parts. The first is the header. This part needs to be completed one day in advance, making a rough dietary plan for the next day. For example, you might write: Breakfast at home, eggs, whole wheat bread, soy milk; Lunch brought by yourself, vegetable and chicken rice; Dinner at home, sweet potato, avocado, vegetable salad; Snacks are yogurt and oranges. A line of text is enough. You don't need to plan meal times. The most important thing is that you know what you will eat the next day and what kind of food you should prepare.

The second part of the food log is the main table, which looks complicated but is actually quite simple. Each time you eat (whether it's solid food or a liquid with some calories, such as milk tea or yogurt), you should record it in the main table, noting the specific time of eating, your location, and the specific content of the meal. How detailed should the specific content be? For example, the previously mentioned "dinner at home, avocado, vegetable salad" could be recorded as: one sweet potato, half an avocado, some lettuce and cucumber, plus olive oil. This record doesn't need to be too detailed; you don't need to calculate calories or weigh the food. Recording the name of the food and its approximate portion is sufficient. Remember I mentioned using the size of your palm to measure food portions in the "112" rule? We can even record it like this: for example, the "bring your own lunch, vegetables, chicken and rice" mentioned earlier could be: one palm's worth of chicken, one palm's worth of rice, and two palms' worth of broccoli. This kind of record is not only visual and easy to understand, but it can also directly help us implement the "112" rule.

There's another important tip for keeping a food record. Mark your wake-up and bedtime on all your food records. This helps you adhere to the 4-hour rule. For example, if you wake up at 7:00 AM, you could write in the record: "Time: 7:00 AM; Location: Home; Food Intake: ×××". Following the 4-hour rule means you should finish breakfast before 7:30 AM, and the time between your last meal and bedtime should not exceed 4 hours. Therefore, recording your wake-up and bedtime is crucial.

The final part of the food log is an analysis of binge eating. The focus here is on recording each instance of binge eating (including the time, place, and content of the binge), and deepening your understanding of binge eating by completing the "What happened?" section. We discussed the triggers for binge eating in Chapter 1. Generally, they are either physiological factors (such as excessive dieting or yo-yo eating) or psychological factors (such as negative emotions or excessive stress), or a combination of both. Therefore, after binge eating, you should seriously ask yourself: What event, environment, or emotion led to this binge eating? What was your state of mind before the binge eating occurred? In the future, how can I change my ways to avoid falling into the trap of binge eating? Once you have a clear understanding of this binge eating episode, you can refer to the previous content to intervene. If it's due to negative emotions, you can consider using the skills introduced in the "Emotional Eating" section; if it's due to yo-yo eating, you should seriously follow the "112" rule, the 4-hour limit rule, and use food records to plan ahead.

Homework

1. Starting today, please complete one food record every day.

2. It is best to record your meals immediately after each meal if possible. If time does not permit, you can complete the recording all at once in the evening.

3. While completing your food diary, please plan and prepare your meals for the next day each day.

4. If you have recently been binge eating, please analyze your eating records to determine what factors led to the binge eating.