Crack Your Body's Secret Code

We all know and love-to-hate food diaries. At best, they have felt like a waste of time for me. At worst, they have felt like a daily list of sins I've committed. I've avoided them as much as I possibly can.

I noticed something recently that would make a record of my eating habits something that could be helpful. Some mornings my breakfast carries me for 3-4 hours without any trouble. I don't feel any cravings or hunger pangs. On other mornings, my breakfast barely gets me out the door. This is when I'm most tempted to stop off at McDonald's or Dunkin Donuts for a breakfast sandwich -- tons of carbs and fat I really don't need.

What makes one breakfast carry me into the day and another breakfast not? Similar things happen to me at other meals of the day, too, with the "wrong" meals leading me into a day of picking and grabbing fast foods. Knowing which meals will keep me satified for 3-4 hours will keep me away from unhealthy choices.

To help me crack the code of my own body, I've started keeping Secret Code Cards. On each index card, I write what I ate at a meal. For my own personal meal plan, I'm trying to hold to a certain number of calories per meal, so I do the best I can to estimate the calories I've eaten. I'm also curious about how much carb, protein, and fat it may take to make a "balanced" meal, so I keep track of that when I can.

You can decide what you want to record on your own Secret Code Cards. It'll all depend on the type of eating plan you are trying to follow and what things you think may be important to know when you are deciding what to eat.

With one meal on every card, you can make notes on the card about how long the meal carried you, or if it made you feel sluggish or energetic. Draw large X's through cards of meals that just didn't work for you. Keep those cards around long enough to know to avoid those meals and to collect enough cards with meals that make you feel your best. At that point, you can toss the cards with X's. You'll have decipered your own personal code. You'll know exactly what you body needs at each meal, and you'll have created your own, personalized meal plan.

No one knows better than you what makes your body hum. Use Secret Code Cards to help you define that hum. Then, by eating what makes you feel good, your eating plan will never be a drag.