14 DAY TRIAL // No matter how hard we try to keep tabs on our food or, more often, on the daily calorie intake, it is being claimed that we are hardly aware of what we eat. Because of this, even when we’re dieting, we tend to overindulge and not even realize it, and then we wonder what has gone wrong that we’re not losing weight. A solution for this would be to photograph everything we eat throughout the day for a few weeks, as Brigid Moss of Red Magazine did.
According to Moss, even when we’re looking at food, we’re not really paying attention to it. This is one of the main reasons why we’re not losing weight – quite on the contrary – since we’re too busy stuffing our face instead of enjoying our food. To test out a new theory, Moss took to taking pictures of everything she ate for an entire month and thus became aware of her actual diet. In doing so, she also lost three pounds, learned to look at food differently and, at the same time, appreciate it more.
“You would think I’d know exactly what I eat each day – after all, it’s me who picks up my food and puts it into my mouth. And as the health director of Red, a women’s magazine, being careful about eating well is my job. But four months ago, it struck me that I never really looked at my food – and you probably don’t either. For while we are fairly aware of what we eat every day, few of us ever take the time to consider exactly how much we consume and what the elements of our meals are. With this in mind, in April I started really looking at my food – in fact, I started photographing it (on the opposite page we have shown one dish for every day). And the effect it’s had on me is remarkable.” Moss writes in the latest issue of the magazine.
With the help of the snaps she would take every day and study later at night when she got home, Moss learned which were the situations she was likely to turn to comfort food for (junk food and sweets, more specifically), how alcohol influenced her cravings, whether she felt the need to reward herself when things were going well (and she did) and what relationship she had with food. After dealing with all this, she also learned that food was a very important element in our life, not only for its nutritional value, but also for its social role. Therefore, she started appreciating it more, savoring it like never before and, consequently, lost weight.
However, even if it worked for her so good, the method is not something that Moss would have other women go through: just stopping to look at food every once in a while would be more than enough. “Although it has been a good experience, I wouldn’t recommend it – there’s no need. All we need to do is be more mindful, and pause to look properly at food before we eat it. You might think you look at your food, but when you really do, everything changes.” Moss concludes by saying.