Self-monitoring: Record all food intake to enhance physical and mental intelligence.

If you've embraced a non-dieting mindset regarding weight control, have a meaningful weight loss goal (even if it's not an ideal weight based on modern standards), and are clear that there are no obvious obstacles preventing you from starting, then now is the time to reflect on your eating habits. While continuing to address emotional eating and eating influenced by external factors, we can look at other factors affecting your eating without imposing the artificial restrictions of dieting. Data collection is necessary to do this.

Information on bodily intelligence

Do you remember the first time you heard your own voice on a recording? Are you surprised when you hear those frequent, halting "um," "ah," or "uh" sounds? Perhaps you'll find yourself repeatedly using phrases like "you know" or "for example" (you know... the weather is... for example... it's that cold outside). We're not consciously aware of these speaking habits; we only realize them when they're objectively recorded. The same applies to eating.

Regardless of your weight, some of your eating is not consciously controlled, but whether you are aware of it or not, the food you eat has a calorie value. For example, you can't remember the calories in the peanut butter you lick off the knife when you're making sandwiches for your kids, nor can you remember the calories in a spoonful of spaghetti sauce you take from the pan to taste to see if it needs salt.

If you collect the food from your children's plates and, to avoid waste, you eat the leftovers yourself, does that count as your food intake? If you don't eat the whole cookie, but only the crumbs at the bottom of the cookie bag, do you still count their calories? Studies show that when overweight people are asked, they generally underestimate their calorie intake by 30% to 50%, while people of normal weight underestimate their food intake by 20%.

A recent study showed that even professional dietitians underestimate their calorie intake by 10%. If dietitians can't figure out their own food intake, what can others do? It's short-sighted to focus on changing conscious eating habits while continuing unconscious ones. To increase bodily intelligence, you must be fully aware of everything you're eating.

In Chapter 4, I suggested using 3x5 cm cards to record emotional eating. This time, keep the same method, but record all food intake, including meals and snacks not triggered by emotions. Before you feel this is impractical or too difficult and give up on the assignment, rest assured that it only takes two weeks, and you don't need to meticulously weigh every single thing you eat or calculate its calorie value.

Just like with your emotional eating journal, it's important to record your meals as soon as possible after eating, rather than waiting until the end of the day to try and recall everything you ate. Of course, if you're eating with others, it's perfectly reasonable to postpone recording until you're alone. No one other than you needs to know or discuss what you ate or didn't eat. Because you won't be sharing this information with anyone else, there's no reason to forget about it or falsify it.

Below, using 3x5 cm cards or your notebook, write the following titles:

Overeating due to timing, food/amount, location/person/environment?

The first column records the time of eating, and the second column records the type and amount of food. When you feel that you have eaten more of a certain food than you should, or feel that your eating is out of control, check the box in the third column, "Overeating?". Finally, in the fourth column, write down your location and all the factors that prompted you to eat, such as people, emotions, special external food cues, or other factors that help you identify your eating patterns.

The typical reaction I encountered when assigning this task was grumbling, complaining, and various reasons why it was difficult or impossible. A week later, there were virtually no complaints. It wasn't that difficult, and almost everyone learned something new about their eating habits.

Several studies have shown that people who carefully monitor their eating lose significantly more weight than those who don't, and failure to monitor eating is a predictor of weight loss failure. Knowing this is helpful. When you monitor your eating, you become aware of the types of food you're consuming, know what needs to be changed, and are encouraged when you see changes. Most importantly, due to increased awareness, the opportunity to make decisions about what to eat arises. The essence of bodily intelligence is knowing what you're going to do with your food and thus making rational choices.

Finally, when you successfully lose weight, knowing how self-monitoring works will become your safety net. When you seem to be throwing away that safety net and your weight seems to be starting to increase, resuming self-monitoring will allow you to identify what went wrong, make the necessary changes, and move forward.