- Rudyard KiplingYou may be wondering how writing can have any effect on weight loss. There is power in the written word, and when you write about yourself, words become even more powerful.
You become enlightened in writing about yourself and your written word can be persuasive and powerful. When you author a personal journal, you are the person for whom writing can work miracles. When keeping a food diary, it creates a blueprint to help you take action to lose weight.
Many persons need a miracle at this time of the year to help shed unwanted pounds piled on during the Christmas season. The very act of writing about personal problems can relieve stress and promote greater self-understanding.
It is very difficult at times to talk about personal issues, so they remain bottled up, creating stress, running down the immune system, raising blood pressure and making it more difficult to lose weight.
Health improved
James Pennebaker, PhD, author of Opening Up: The Healing Power of Confiding in Others, suggests that when you write about a problem or experience, you start putting down all the thoughts that have been going around in your head.
This is where the writing process organises the thoughts into a coherent whole which makes the problem less threatening. As a result, you are more likely to take action to improve health and reduce weight.
When you write about problems or trauma in your life, there is a marked increase in blood concentrations of T-lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that boosts the immune system.
Pennebaker feels that writing is a natural human activity and is a very powerful tool for personal insight. Keeping a journal is a simple, confidential method of organising and clarifying your thoughts and understanding your feelings.
Starting the process
Where do you start your journaling process? It is advisable to do a trial and error for three days to see if you will like the process.
1. Find a quiet place and make this your writing space.
2. Write for at least 15 minutes at a time for the three days.
3. Practise disclosing some intimate part of yourself and see how you like it. The process may be a little difficult at the start but you will get more comfortable over time.
4. Talk into a tape recorder to help your feelings flow and transfer to paper. A typewriter or computer is also useful if you are stymied.
If you like the journaling process, continue to write about issues, persons and events that may be bearing down your mind. Describe your experiences as best as possible and record your feelings about them. The important thing is to let the words flow, so disregard grammar, spelling, vocabulary and sentence construction in the initial stage.
New perspectives
As you record your feelings, you can expect to feel sad or depressed at the end of the writing process. This is because you have recalled unpleasant feelings but the negative emotions will disappear after an hour or so and by the third or fourth day your mood will be lifted again as you gain new perspective about your problem.
As you battle with weight loss, it will be very helpful to identify the emotions and events associated with your size. Besides the journal for your emotions, you will need to keep a food diary.
A food diary is a very effective tool in weight loss. Your nutritionist or dietitian can use a food diary to help you determine if your current eating habits are healthy and where your diet is going wrong, if you are getting too much or too few calories. A food diary can also help you know if you are getting enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains and healthy proteins each day as well as determining if your carb-fat-protein ratios are in healthy proportions.
Getting started
To start, you will need a three-ring binder, a three-hole paper punch and paper, or you may use a hard cover notebook or diary. You will need a kitchen scale, measuring cups and spoons for portion sizes in order to know how many calories, carbs, fats, proteins, etc, that you are eating. You also need to know how to read nutrition fact labels to understand the portion sizes for packaged food.
Once you have all these items ready, you need the desire to understand your diet and even more desire to change your diet to control your weight and improve your health. Recording your emotions in your journal will help you understand why you have eaten the way you have eaten as recorded in your food diary.
Your journal and food diary should be kept private. If you plan to show your writing to someone else, subconsciously you will be writing for that person. According to Dr Pennebaker, you are the only audience so you do not have to justify or rationalise yourself in what you write. You will get more honest and straightforward cues to help you deal with your problem in a better way.
The journaling process is for clarification and revelation, but is not a substitute for taking action. Writing helps when you are angry and distraught, but you must be careful not to become absorbed in the process. Writing must facilitate action, not replace it. Having clarified your emotions, your next step is to seek help for sensible weight loss that will make you happy for life.
Heather Little-White, PhD, is a nutrition and lifestyle consultant in Kingston, Jamaica. Send comments to editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223.
