I saw this insane thing in the Chapters bookstore in Montreal a while ago. So when I went back to Montreal last week, I simply had to seek it out and take a picture of it.
In this "Diet & Fitness Journal" you are supposed to record all kinds of exercise you did every day and also every single thing you ingested. And this includes every sup of any liquid (even water.) The journal costs $19,99, which is quite a lot in the current difficult economic climate. The actual page of the journal came out a little blurry, but believe me, the number of little boxes you are supposed to fill out every single day and the amount of information you have to provide about what you eat and drink is truly daunting. I wonder why the makers of this journal didn't decide to be honest and name it "Anorexia Journal." It is obvious that its only goal is to foster an extremely unhealthy attitude towards food.
6 comments:
That reminds me of Bridget Jones diary...
Don't even remind me of that horrible disgusting propaganda device of vicious patriarchy!
I spent way to much of my 30s on Weight Watchers, which encourages this same kind of hyper-vigilant tracking (including pithy slogans such as "If you bite it, write it!") for a monthly fee. I have since found Fat Acceptance and largely recovered from diet-induced self-loathing and I still refer to Weight Watchers as a "pay-per-symptom eating disorder inculcation system." Not very catchy, granted, but accurate.
- J
"I have since found Fat Acceptance and largely recovered from diet-induced self-loathing"
-Good for you!!
"I still refer to Weight Watchers as a "pay-per-symptom eating disorder inculcation system."
-:-) Very true. :-)
If you're going to record everything you eat, I actually like the site www.sparkpeople.com. Similar principle in that it records everything you eat, including calories-- but it also tracks protein/fiber/fat, and vitamins. I found it super helpful in making sure I'm able to both get enough fat in my diet while not eating too much protein. I tend to do either one or the other, so its good for me to be balanced. It also helped me realize how much junk and sodium I was eating-- but yeah, it's primarily a diet website. I guess the positive there is that it refuses to allow you to set weight loss goals of more than 2 pounds a week.
It is good for some people with a goal of losing weight to keep a week-long diary of their current non-diet eating habits, and then just look at the week and see what habits could be altered. For example: If the afternoon break is fueled by sugar-containing soft drink, consider either changing to equivalent calorie vitamin-containing fruit juice or to lower/ no calorie tea, coffee, water, soda. But the diary needn't be used as a maintenance task, just as a diagnostic tool. The user has better things to do with his or her time.
Many or most people can make their own "diary" by just making a simple spreadsheet week or month template on Excel, to be maintained by using pencil. Exercisers can do this to remember when they worked which muscle group, or runners prepping for races can schedule their short and long runs.
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