Self-Evaluation- Form Follows Function

In the first week of your program, I asked you to complete a basic but critical exercise as you begin to lose weight—self-monitoring. The primary purpose of self-monitoring is to provide an opportunity for you to examine your current behaviors, increasing your awareness of what you are doing currently in your daily lifestyle.

Now the second week of your program is about evaluating what you've recorded and making plans for how to move forward. In many instances when we ask people to journal their food intake the week prior to coming to the EatRight clinic at UAB, people will start to recognize patterns and areas for improvement in their typical intake. By the time our team of clinicians meet with them, they have diagnosed many of the problems that are making it difficult for them to manage their weight successfully.

What have you noticed about your week of journaling? Common patterns of eating that I see frequently include skipping breakfast, irregular spacing of meals, unplanned snacking, and grazing. Each pattern of eating has an underlying cause—I skipped breakfast because I stayed up eating "unmentionables" until midnight. So of course, I wasn't hungry at 7 am! Or I graze in the afternoons because I worked through lunch and didn't take the time to get a balanced meal.

I'm almost done with this post, and I still haven't said anything about WHAT you ate. And, I won't. This is all about understanding your structure of eating. In the design world, the phrase "Form follows function" describes a principle that the design of an object should be consistent with the intended purpose or use of the object. Your "FORM" of eating has a lot to do with the "FUNCTION" of your weight. You can't eat in a pattern designed to promote inconsistency and high calorie intake and expect to lose weight in the long-term. It just won't happen.

So for week 2, I want you to review your food journal from week 1 and identify any structural changes that you would like to make. Think about timing and spacing of meals and snacks (ideally every 3 hours); think about triggers that make you inconsistent; think about how the previous meal sets up the next meal. Figure out what you need to do to be consistent with your "FORM" of eating on a daily basis in the setting of your lifestyle. Continue journaling daily on your road to success.