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One of the first guidelines for anyone starting out in the Weight Watchers program is the simple directive to "Write it down." Whatever you eat, no matter how much or how little, must be documented on paper or online using the Weight Watchers Points Tracker. Ideally you should keep track of when you eat and the emotional motivation behind eating as well. This is what is known in the world of Weight Watchers as "Food Tracking."

Food tracking involves keeping a journal of all meals and snacks consumed throughout the day, as well as the point value assigned by the Weight Watchers system to each particular food. The reason for this is simple. If you don't know what you've been eating all day long, how can you expect to monitor or maintain your weight?

The guiding premise of Weight Watchers is "accountability." By weighing in each week, you are held accountable. By making judicious use of the Points Tracker, you are holding yourself accountable yet again. At first, recording everything in the Points Tracker may seem like a silly waste of time. After all, you're eating what you're supposed to be eating. Aren't you? Well, let's see. If you wrote it all down you could give an honest answer to that question.

Tracking your food consumption can be a real eye opener. If you're being totally honest with yourself, you may find yourself writing down a surprising amount of food selections. Half a bagel in the break room? Write it down. Candy bar after lunch? Yep, it's in there. Two servings of mashed potatoes with dinner? You know where it goes.

After doing this for awhile, it starts to become apparent just exactly where those extra 10, 20, 30. . . pounds came from. It may not be the happiest moment of your life, but it will be a very revealing one. Once you actually start to see what you eat over the course of a day, you can finally get on the road to improving your health and nutritional level. In the process, you will almost certainly lose the weight you were trying to get rid of.

Tracking your food consumption is not just a mindless exercise made up by nutritional experts to distract you from eating. Tracking leads to awareness. And awareness is the first essential step to making realistic, permanent changes in any aspect of your life. You cannot change what you cannot acknowledge. When you see it before you, written down in black and white, you can no longer deny it.

Learn more about this author, Leann Zotis.
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