Three Ways Regular Journaling Helps You Eat Better

You may have heard about the potential benefits of regular journaling and reflective writing before, but now more than ever there is an abundance of evidence and research supporting this activity for both physical and emotional health. The question you might ask is how exactly can putting our thoughts onto paper improve our health and well-being, and what in particular can it help to improve or prevent?

Here are three ways regular journaling can help us eat better and how it can rebuild our relationship with food.

1.     Regular journaling is a helpful strategy for people suffering from eating disorders including Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa. Writing honestly about your thoughts and feelings for a little bit of time each day has been proven in many studies to help people who are recovering from eating disorders. It is listed as an important strategy in The Bulimia Help Method written by Richard Kerr, the founder of a Bulimia self-help program. It has been highlighted as a great way to ‘mentally purge’ and is a great way to distract ones-self from urges to practice disordered eating [1].

2.     Journaling in the form of a food diary can be beneficial for weight loss and the adoption of more positive eating habits and behaviours. A long-running study conducted in 2008 found that keeping a daily food diary can actually double a person’s weight loss, supporting other evidence that the mere act of recording what you eat encourages you to actually eat less [2]. Essentially, by reflecting on what you eat you become more aware of your habits and by becoming more aware it becomes easier to know what behaviours you need to change. Another study found a significant relationship between self-monitoring methods (including paper food diaries) and weight loss. It justified these findings by stating that self-monitoring encourages the self-evaluation of one’s progress and this is most beneficial in the process of habit change [3].

3.     Daily journaling has also been found to reduce anxiety and stress and improve our mood. We know by now the negative effects that stress can have on our diet and eating habits…so by doing a little bit of journaling everyday you might just find some improvement in stress levels, overall life satisfaction and eating habits. For example, two meta-analysis studies strongly supported the act of journaling to reduce stress and improve physical and mental health. Physical health even included an improved immune system, reduced blood pressure and better memory! [4, 5]

So, if you find that you struggle with disordered patterns of eating, or you are simply too stressed sometimes, maybe try taking out the pen and paper and writing down your thoughts and feelings. You may find that you have a greater capacity to deal with the daily challenges that life can bring.

References:

[1] Kerr, R. The Bulimia Help Method. (2014). First Printing, Glasgow.

[2] Kaiser Permanente. (2008). Keeping a food diary doubles weight loss.

[3] Burke, L., Wang, J. (2011). Self-monitoring in weight loss: a systematic review of the literature. J Am Diet Association, 111(1): 92-102.

[4] Smyth, J. (1998). Written emotional expression: effect sizes, outcome types and moderating variables. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66(1): 174-184.

[5] Baikie, K., & Wilhelm, K. (2005). Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 11(5).