Food for thought

I read an article in the Fargo paper not that long ago about a former FDA honcho who wrote a book on food addictions and compulsive eating habits. I thought, "That's the book for me." Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the book or the author... It got me thinking, though, that I've slipped back into many of my old ways. I haven't lost any more weight since December and I know I still have lots to lose. I am being brutally honest with myself-I NEED to get healthy. I remember how good I felt when I realized that I was down over 20 pounds from my heaviest weight. I want to reclaim that feeling and earlier this week, I started to do something about it. I've been having back troubles lately so I did yoga stretches for 30 minutes twice this week. I felt so much more limber and I had more energy. I have also made more of an effort to incorporate fruits and veggies into my diet. Both Lanny and I are eating fruit on our way to morning chores. I also made a point of putting out salad fixings with each supper meal we ate last week. It was so easy I actually thought, "Now why didn't I think of this before?"! Starting tomorrow, I am going to keep a notebook on the table and write down everything I eat. Everything that I have read on successful dieting talks about keeping a food diary because it tends to discourage compulsive eating and 'cheating'. I have also discovered that keeping a 'water' chart on the fridge helps, too. I never seem to drink enough water because I forget to drink it. Since this is an issue, I created a chart to show how much liquid I have consumed in one day. At the end of the day, I noticed how proud I was on how many boxes I had checked off. (One box equals one 8 oz glass of liquid) Each day showed an increase in the number of boxes and, after a week, I was up to the amount of water I need each day. I have noticed that if I have reminders like this water chart and the food diary, I hold myself more accountable and I am more aware of what and how much I am eating. One last motivational tool-we just got a really nice WeightWatchers scale. It gives you body weight, %body fat, and %body water. There isn't anything more motivational than seeing that weight number going down and the water number going up.