That's Fit

Keep a food diary for a couple weeks and you'll learn way more than calories consumed. If you're having trouble losing weight, DietBlog offers six ways a food diary can keep your food consumption accurate and honest:

• Account for those little extras: This is definitely my problem. I'll eat three healthy squares, but screw up in between. A food diary will keep you honest.
• Treat time!: Diets fail when there's no fun. Tracking calories can also reveal times when you can enjoy a guilt-free treat.
• When do you eat?: A food diary can reveal your danger zones -- moments in the day when you tend to overeat. For me, that's around 4:00 pm. I need more protein at lunch.
• No 'portion creep': If the pounds are creeping back on, portion creep may be to blame. Time to weigh your foods and record it all in your diary.
• Habits a changin': Flip around your food diary for motivation. If you're struggling, take a look at what you ate during a perfect week. If you've been on a roll, look at a bad day to visually congratulate yourself on how your nutrition has improved.
• Self-Control: Let's face it, keeping a food diary makes you face the music every time you pop something in your mouth. It's more than a calorie-counter, it can be a real self-control booster, too.

Nobody is surprised anymore to hear that stress is unhealthy for the human body in many many ways, including contributing to weight gain and heart disease. But stress is one of those things that no matter how bad we know it is for us it's still difficult to get rid of because it's embedded into our everyday lives. But over at The Diet Blog they came up with a great list of 17 ways to reduce stress, because you can never get too much help or hear too many ideas in that department. My favorites from their list? Listening to music and playing with my cats and dog.