You Need to Keep a Diet Log Book

A daily diet log book must be kept throughout the days and weeks of each weightlifting cycle.

Without a log book for your diet, you'll be trying to reach your goals in the dark.

You've got to know how your body is reacting to a particular amount of calories.

Are you gaining weight or losing weight with THIS amount of calories?

You need to know how many calories it takes for you to lose weight or gain weight. Let me stress that to you again: It is very important to keep a daily diet log… very important.

Without a log book, you will only be able to guess where you're going. Keeping a log of your diet is like having a map telling you exactly where you're going. I don't want you to get lost.

Don't blindly go through the days working hard on your weight lifting, diet, and cardio and have nothing to show for all your hard work. You are throwing away all that hard work when you don't track your diet.

Here's What You Should Record In Your Diet Log

All of this may sound difficult to true beginners, but you'll get the hang of it. It will become very easy for you to record this information in the future.

For your log book, you need to record the following:

1. Foods eaten
2. Calories
3. Protein
4. Carbs
5. Fat
6. Percentages
7. Totals
8. Averages

You can record this information on a single line in your log book for each food that you eat. Make it as simple as possible.

You can simply make you a list of foods with data for each food in a spreadhseet program. Get yourself a free copy of Open Office and use their free spreadsheet program.

You continue the example above until you've recorded everything for the day up until your bed time at night. Before you go to bed, you can total up the calories, protein, carb, and fat grams.

You can do this however you'd like. You can simply record the food you've eaten throughout the day and then assign all the numbers later.

I like to assign numbers as I go and keep an up to date count as I go so that I know where I'm at with respect to meeting my caloric requirements for the day.

It's much easier to pace yourself for the rest of your meals when you do it this way.

Total It All Up At The End Of The Day…

You should have all of your totals along with each and every food that you've eaten for the day. Recording the food really helps you look back on how clean you were eating at the time.

No cheating here. If you eat something bad, make sure you record it.

You'll learn to stay on your diet because you'll have trouble counting the calories for the junk foods that you eat. Those calories can really add up fast when you start eating the junk food.

Make sure that you have those totals before you go to bed each and every night. Make a habit of this and you'll be well on your way to meeting your goals.

After a while, it will become second nature to you. It will only take you a few minutes to get those totals each night.

What about cheat meals?

It's okay to have a cheat meal every once in a while. I don't want you to make a habit of it, though. Make sure you're eating well most of the time.

If you want to have a cheat meal once per week, make sure you plan for it by scaling back on some of your other meals for that day.

If you're feeling a little worn down, have a huge cheat meal and don't hold back. Just don't make a habit of having cheat meals ALL THE TIME!!!

Go to a buffet and pile up on the meats and other proteins. Always make sure you record each and every meal in your log book.

Once you have all your foods recorded and the data for each food, you should sum up all of the data and calculate Protein, Carb, and Fat percentages.

If you are shooting for certain percentages, ensure you are reaching them each day.

Use Your Log Book to Make Adjustments

At the end of the week, calculate averages so you know your caloric intake and your weight gain or weight loss results. You will use these averages throughout your weight lifting cycle to adjust your diet weekly.

So you have to keep a diet log and you need to ensure you keep it updated daily. A daily log of the foods you eat will only take a few minutes of your time or less if you get a spreadsheet set up that easily calculates everything for you.

If you set up a meal plan and follow it exactly, you will never have to calculate anything. It's really easy that way. Learn more within the WLC System Manual.