A helpful exercise for losing weight is to journal your eating patterns. Take a few moments to think about how you eat. Do you have three meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner? Or do you “graze,” eating little amounts throughout the day? Do you ever starve yourself, binge-eat, or purge? (By this I mean going without food for long periods of time, or eating huge amounts of food uncontrollably, and/or causing yourself to vomit afterwards.) Those behaviors are possible signs of deeper physical or psychological problems. If you do this, please contact a medical doctor immediately, as such behaviors might be dangerous or even life-threatening.

Just keep a record of what and how much you eat, and when. I’m not suggesting any particular diet. What I am offering is the possibility to spot a pattern; just simple encouragement to write about some habits that may not be serving you well – with too many servings, or possibly not eating enough. For me, keeping logs, or journals of my eating behaviors turned out to be a useful way to become conscious of how, what, when and where I ate, and ultimately helped me learn to get exactly what I needed.

–Norris Chumley