Is Food Photo Blogging The Next Step?

Catching up on my blog reading this morning, I stopped by foodfoodbodybody, one of my favorite Weight Watchers bloggers, to see that she now has a photo food blog. She eats cool stuff.
I’ve been really struggling with staying on track these days, and I’ve been allowing foods to slip into my mouth before I even think about them, so I’ve also been considering this photographing-my-food-before-eating-it thing too. I hadn’t decided if I would do this publicly or just for myself— and really I still haven’t decided if I want to share what I eat with the blogosphere— but I do think I will start snapping pictures of my food before I put it in my mouth.
When I started on Weight Watchers, I was religious about tracking my food, watching portion sizes and points and making sure I was eating enough veggies and fruit. I’m not a big veggie fan so it’s really easy for me to fall off track there.
I began drinking lots and lots of water too and limiting sweet and salty snacks. And it worked amazingly well… for a year. I lost weight slowly but consistently. I wasn’t hungry. I started moving. I felt great.
And then I hit a wall in the form of a lingering plateau. I’m not sure what came first. The plateau or the grazing. One or two Hershey’s Kisses here, a spoonful of ice cream there, a chip or 10 from the party bowl. All I know is even though I was still tracking my food and staying within points for the most part, the weight loss stopped.
I am an emotional eater. Frustration is an emotion. You know how this ends.
Since I was getting nowhere anyway, I started letting more of the bad stuff in and stopped watching the good stuff as carefully. Eventually, I stopped tracking altogether. And now, I’m no longer on a plateau. I’m creeping…up. That was not the plan.
Once you let go of that discipline and let your head back in the game, it gets really tough to get back on track. I’ve been trying to get back on track for a couple of months now. I have good days, but I have bad days too. My tracking is inconsistent at best, and I’m still splurging and not holding myself accountable. And now I’m seeing it on the scale and in the way my clothes fit.
The one thing I haven’t let go of is the exercise, which has kept me from gaining even more than the 12 pounds I’ve put back on. And I’m great with my water intake too.
But the food. I need to get a handle on the food. And I think I need a drastic jolt to remind me of what I should be eating and how much.
I’ve done better this week than I have in a while. But the cravings are there and I’m just not as resistant to them as I was a year ago. If I start to see my food through a camera lens before I eat it, maybe I will realize just how much I am eating, and how off track I really am. If nothing else, photographing my food will make me stop and think before eating instead of mindlessly popping cookies in my mouth as I walk by them in the kitchen.
So here’s the plan. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to take pictures of my food before I eat it. For the first week, I’ll let you know how it goes but I don’t think I’ll put pics of my food on the blog. I think in my case that will be pretty boring. I don’t eat the cool stuff that foodie mcbody eats. Who knows though? Maybe photographing my food will make me more creative.
I will let you know how it makes me feel, though, and if it helps me to be more conscientious about my food intake. And I’ll let you know if it doesn’t help me either.
In the second week, maybe we’ll even make it a challenge…

Tags: fat girl to fit girl, food record, photo food blogging, tracking calories, Weight Loss