The food diary takes a holiday

If you take a look at the graph below, you'll see that a couple of Saturdays ago, day 103, I'd put some weight on. Not only that, I'd put weight on for two weeks on the trot. Not what I'd intended.

Yes, there had been some work dinners - as well as the usual weekend binges - but I wasn't happy with it. It was time for a bit of a change.

So, for the last two weeks, you'll notice there has been no food diary: I have stopped keeping one. I've done this for a few reasons, despite the fact that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that keeping a food diary is one of the easiest things to do to help you lose weight.

Why keep a food diary

Simply, just to keep an eye on how many calories you've swallowed each day. If you put in fewer than you use, you'll lose weight, so knowing how many you've put in is a key part of the weight-loss equation.

If you keep a food diary for a while, you do start to get a feel for how many calories are contained within certain foods - particularly if you keep eating the same things again and again as I do. I'm certainly a creature of habit.

Once you've got the caloric values of a core of ingredients stored in your head, it's relatively straightforward to cook yourself a quick meal, and know about how many calories are in there. It's even easier if you use the rounding up to the nearest fifty method.

A quick example:

Slice of buttered toast: 150 kcal
A large egg: 100 kcal
Two back bacon medallions: 100 kcal
Two slices of ham: 50 kcal
Large glass of wine: 250 kcal
Slice of black pudding/lorne sausage/fruit pudding/haggis: 200 kcal
Milk in 2 cups of tea: 50 kcal
1x Sainsbury's jam doughnut: 250 kcal
1x buttered Scottish morning roll: 150 kcal

With that simple list, you're empowered to create myriad combinations of breakfasts, brunches, snacks, lunches, light dinners, very heavy dinners, and more, quickly, easily and without having to worry about doing lots of sums each time.

It just makes things very easy and, by always having a running total of what you're eating, you know when you're getting close to your daily calorie limit and, if you go over it, by how much you need to adjust the number for tomorrow to keep the week on track.

So why am I not keeping a food diary?

Firstly, because I'm sure it makes a lot of this blog very boring. Let's be honest, you know what I eat by now - mostly doughnuts - and I think, well, I hope at least, that I've made the point that you can lose weight week on week by eating mostly doughnuts, even if you have a Big Mac or a can of Dr. Pepper.

Just keep the calorie total under what you burn.

Secondly, it's also very boring to write. I have to keep a note on my phone, then type it up each day, all while trying to get the children dressed, fed, cleaned, teeth brushed and cleaned again. Keeping this food diary - keeping it public at least - was just an annoying part of my morning routine.

The other reason - and perhaps the main reason - was that I think I just needed to shake things up a bit. I'd put on weight for a couple of weeks, yes there were reasons, but perhaps the food diary was giving me a false sense of security. The running total said I was under my limit, so I ate something else to take me up to my limit.

That strategy is fine, but it doesn't leave you with sufficient headroom when you do end up having a couple of work meals out in the same week.

So, for the last two weeks the food diary has gone. And I've lost weight for both of those weeks. I'm nearly back down to where I was before I went to France.

I'm still counting calories, but I'm just having a quick think about it in the morning, roughly planning the day and not thinking about it after that. For the majority of work days, the plan has been 1 bag of 5 doughnuts (1150 kcal) or cookies (1100 kcal) for late morning, then some ham sandwiches (150 kcal each) to take me up to around 2000 calories for the day. Perhaps 2250 if I'm going to be walking a lot.

Quick, easy and, so far it seems, effective.