Reflecting on a Week of Meals

For those of you who have been following along on my weight loss blog you know that I have been experimenting with a new technique this past week – taking pictures of everything that I eat.  It hasn’t been easy and honestly I have missed a few things, but all in all I’ve been happy enough with the results that I think I will try to continue with this and make it a habit. Although I’d like to see more readers rating my meals, it’s simple to do!

Here is a quick summary of my week in meals:

	Didn’t get off to a great start by losing the picture of breakfast, but I ate well this day in my opinion – no meat at all, something none of my commenters mentioned!
	I just realized it, but almost no meat again this day – just some sausage in the soup. Loving that fresh pineapple!
	First day at work on the plan and you can tell because there is some fast food – but I chose a healthy Subway sandwich done as plainly as possible. Not bad.
	I only ate a little more than 1,000 calories on Tuesday because I was SO busy at work. More fast food, but I tried to make it a healthy chicken sandwich.
	Two visits to fast food for lunch and dinner and the ratings from readers reflecting it – only 3 stars out of 10, the poorest of the week. Still, I think I made healthy choices.
	Readers looking for more veggies in my diet liked that I ate a salad bar meal for lunch that consisted mostly of leafy greens.
	Finished up the last of the pineapple, missed taking a picture of lunch because I was interviewing a candidate and running out to the car for my camera phone ould have been too weird!

Here are a few of my early observations about the process:

• I am using a G1 phone which works great for this – camera quality is decent and after taking the picture it’s really easy to post on Twitter and send a copy to my email so I can get the picture on my computer. I’m sure most of today’s smart phones would do this equally well of course.
• One of the benefits for weight loss that I think this will offer is that it is really forcing me to try to compose a plate full of food, which means I need to think in advance what I will be eating and what the portion sizes would be. I’ll often resort to grazing, which is not only bad for taking photos but of course supremely bad for dieting.
• The feedback that I have been getting is great and adds to the interest of taking the photos. Although it is getting a little old when most of the comments are “Eat more veggies!”

I’ve tried to record what I ate before and was never successful doing it. Taking pictures has enabled me to actually do it for a week, which leads me to believe this is something I could do for awhile.

Hopefully by taking this approach I will be eating less, making better food decisions and ultimately lose weight.

Like the idea? Give it a try and let us know your results!