Learning to listen to your body: a form

[catspaw]

I've been trying to get better recently at listening to my body.  What type of hunger do I have at the moment?  Does a 1:1 protein:fat(g) ratio help me feel fuller, or does a 1:0.5 work better for me?  When I wake up feeling bloated, what did I eat the night before?  etc.

 

I've been using the following form for a few weeks now and really enjoying the data it provides, so thought I'd share it in case anyone else finds it useful.

 

 

Date: _________________ , [ ] Rest day [ ] Workout day

Today I woke up feeling like my body looked: _______________________

 

Number of coffees this morning: ______

 

Lunch time: _____________

Before lunch, I felt: __________________________

Lunch foods:

  - 

  - 

  - 

After the meal, I felt: __________________________

 

Snack time: _____________

Before my snack, I felt: __________________________

Snack foods:

  - 

  - 

After the meal, I felt: __________________________

 

Workout (optional):

   - Workout type: [ ] Shoulders [ ] Back [ ] Chest [ ] Legs

   - Energy level before: __________________________

   - Energy level during: __________________________

   - Energy level after: __________________________

 

Dinner time: _____________

Before dinner, I felt: __________________________

Dinner foods:

  - 

  - 

  - 

After the meal, I felt: __________________________

 

Today, I drank: [ ] A lot of water, [ ] An okay amount of water, [ ] Too little water

 

Before going to bed, I felt: __________________________

[Waldo]

Huh, that's a really interesting idea.

 

Have you been able to gain valuable insight, connecting causes and effects?

 

"That which gets tracked gets improved" - Somebody

[paul119]

I think that was a quote by Peter Drucker in reference to management.

 

I'd be curious to know if this is worth the extra effort put forth..

[ETFnerd]

form is so 90's... shouldn't you have built an app on an ai platform... this isn't paperpusherfitness... ya know... ;-0

[Pretzle]

Looks like a great form. I might decide to use it myself.

 

I dislike 'just' logging what I eat because it feels like a rather useless list of things (I know, it can be plenty useful... I'm just too lazy to properly track portions etc.). This form looks like it can be useful even if you track your food only in a basic way like I do  

 

Thanks for sharing it!

[catspaw]

Huh, that's a really interesting idea.

 

Have you been able to gain valuable insight, connecting causes and effects?

 

"That which gets tracked gets improved" - Somebody

 

Actually I have!!  One of a couple of examples:

 

I've always (before logging) felt that protein keeps me more full than fat, so if I'm on a cut I tend to lean towards like a 60:40 ratio of protein to fat (calories, not grams) to keep me full.

 

BUT since tracking, I've found that protein keeps me full in the short term and fat keeps me full in the long term.

 

If I eat more fat, I tend to be less hungry over a period of the next few days.  I tried switching to more like a 40:60 ratio (reverse) and after a day of feeling less satisfied after every meal, I found that overall the days I felt less hungry before meals.  It still doesn't quite trigger the same "full now!" after the meal is done, but I'm definitely less ravenous between meals.

 

I'm paying close attention to it: "am I still getting enough protein? am I hurting muscle versus fat loss? am I still losing fat?" etc., but sheerly in terms of fullness, my original assumption that protein helps more than fat for me appeeeeeeeears to be simplistic.

[Cameron]

Very interesting! I already track all of my calories, but I like the idea of keeping some sort of log of how the food is affecting my appetite, mood, energy, etc.

 

Energy is the biggest concern for me, as I sometimes find myself very tired during workouts (while other times I have a decent amount of energy throughout). Finding that cause/effect relationship would be nice.

[I-Jo]

definitely need to do something like this- I've been pretty much famished all afternoon every day of the week b/c of how I'm eating- and I'm trying to sort it out- I just started seriously tracking (god I hate it) and finding interesting things (and that I wasn't WAY off on how I perceived I was eating- which was nice)

 

But it's why I started my other thread about macronutrients- I actually think I need to seriously UP my fat intake to keep me feeling more full in the afternoons!!! 

 

definitely a good thought- thank you! 

[terrormortus]

Huh, this is a really good idea. I think I'm going to try it out.

[weirdquark]

I've mostly been trying to track 'how I feel' for mood rather than hunger and just track in the morning after I get up (because I'm about to work out) though it's ended up being a record of "tired," "energetic," or "I don't want to do pistol squats."