Diet and Exercise Journaling

I set a goal of lowering my food intake to the level described in the “I” diet (2008) by Susan Roberts in order to lose thirty pounds and then maintain that weight.  I did not set a deadline because that would not conform to the philosophy of the diet.  I also set an exercise goal of walking the dog each morning and using the stairs instead of the elevator.  

Journaling showed me that my eating habits were varied.  Some days I ate in relative moderation.  Other days I ate too much.  My breakfast habit is firmly established.  I had the same breakfast cereal with low-fat milk every day.  Most days I ate a relatively healthy lunch.  Dinner is where the majority of my over-eating occurs.  The Fourth of July holiday completely blew away any progress I had made towards staying on track for my goal.  Honestly, I must say I made no progress beyond establishing the diet goal.

My exercise habits were also varied.  I put schoolwork and sports on television ahead of my goal of walking the dog.  Most days I did use the stairs and not the elevator.  The last few days I reverted to the elevator because I had too much “stuff” to carry up the stairs.  Overall, I made only minor progress towards meeting my two exercise goals.

My busy schedule and school workload were the main hindrances to achieving my goals.  Journaling reinforced what I already knew about myself:  I can reach a goal if I make it a priority.  In this case I did not make it a priority.

At this point, I do not consider myself a good example for health and fitness for my students.  But this is something I can change.  In time, I fully intend to achieve my goals.  I know they are achievable because I lost weight two years ago by following the i diet and because I have had good exercise habits in the past before I began to slack off.  

Journaling could be a good tool for teaching about health and fitness for the same reason it was a good tool for myself.  It made me conscious of my habits and it could help my students become aware of their own.  In practice, I think it would be better to journal for a week or two in order to determine the baseline of habits before deciding on goals.  Then journaling can help students stay on task and realize when they have reached the goals they set.  A journaling lesson could easily fit into any elementary class.  The teacher could introduce the benefits of healthy diet and exercise in science class and assign journaling to obtain data for the “experiment” of changing the students’ habits.  Then they could manipulate the data  in math class.  And the teacher could ask students to write about the process in their literacy classes.  All these could be effective because the subject would be personal and relevant to each student.