Lean Mode, Color Code--Not Your Usual Food Diary

By Alexis K. Luhrs and Jennifer A. Luhrs

From Jennifer and Alexis Luhrs, creators of the popular Streaming Colors(TM) Fitness Journal "healthy habit-forming calendar" (since 2004), comes the new Lean Mode, Color Code--Not Your Usual Food Diary, with PowerCircles(TM) and FoodDots(TM) you color in and connect on each full page devoted to recording daily diet and exercise details. Studies show people who keep a food diary every day during their weight loss effort can lose twice as much weight as people who don't journal. Food diaries are a proven but underutilized weight loss tool to help you focus on small daily choices. Now the ColorCode Mode team reinvents the humble food diary to be quick, easy, and fun to use. As with all of the ColorCode Mode(TM) Journals, the main idea is to color in the good things you do each day, such as eating more veggies, exercising, drinking more water, or having a junk-food-free day. Color reminds, rewards and motivates you to practice a healthy action long enough for it to become a habit you hardly have to think about (like taking a shower in the morning.) Healthy habits feel comfortable and normal--unlike torturous diets and exercise regimens you can't wait to quit--and are the key to better fitness and a healthier lifestyle Jot down what you eat on each daily page, and then grab your highlighters. Next to each food entry is a FoodDot to color in if you consider that food item or meal to be healthy. Not seeing a lot of color on your page can give you insight into which eating habits you need to change. Can you connect-the-FoodDots(TM) on each daily page by making healthful food choices all day long? A Color Code and Goals page at the beginning of every week gives you the option of setting small, achievable daily goals that you will color into your PowerCircles each day as you meet them. Track such things as a daily calorie goal, exercise goal, your water intake, healthful food items you've added, or a day free of the unhealthy food item you think you can't live without. Keep it simple or add detail and more challenging goals and weekly tabulations as you progress through seven 4Week Bubbles (28 days each) for a full half year of journaling. UNDATED. Add your own dates and start at any time. Completely customizable to fit your habits, goals, program, pace of change and involvement, and style and level of journaling. Since consistency is the key to success, there are places to track your continuous weeks of journaling. Because the main concept is for you to add your own color (and notice when you haven't ) this food diary features all black-and-white (and gray) graphics for you to color in throughout its perfect-bound 270 pages. (Laminated paperback cover is full color, 7.50 inches wide x 9.25 inches high.) In addition to 196 daily tracking pages, there's helpful info on getting started, plus handy Quick Look-Up Charts.The daily page design adapts to your preferences for tracking, including columns for entering what you ate, when/where, quantity, calories, fat, carbs, fiber, and protein, plus one blank column. Lean Mode rewards you every step of the way. Coloring in and connecting your FoodDots and PowerCircles each day is an immediate reward for making positive choices. Set optional goals each week and tally them up in your Weekly Tabs and 4Week Bubbles; then reward yourself for meeting them. Of course the main reward is the creation of healthier habits Lack of color in your FoodDots or PowerCircles is a reminder and motivator to get back on track, and/or set more realistic goals. Over time, a build-up of color is a reminder of your ability to improve. Every completed journal is a unique mosaic of your half year of building healthier habits.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0982140606
• ISBN13: 9780982140604
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Luhrs Media Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.6" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Works for me

I have been using the Lean Mode, Color Code - Not Your Usual Food Diary every day and it has helped me stick with my small habit change goals. I look forward to coloring in the circle for one of my habit goals - my no-candy-days. UPDATE: I've been at it for 3 more weeks and have lost 10 lb. I'm very heavy so 10 lb is easy to lose at my weight but not without focus and determination. This book has been a great tool for me. I have goals to stay within a 1600-1800 calorie range, eat more protein, fruits and vegetables. It's surprising how few servings of vegs and fruits I ate when I started using this book. Seeing habits in writing and colored circles or that lack of colored circles works better than logging info into a web site. The circles are powerful mental motivators for me. I see them in my mind's eye while I'm choosing to eat protein, a vegetable or fruit or not eat candy and I get an immediate inner glow reward that I'm doing something good and right for myself. Good for me. Yeah me. I've found that if I set one new goal at a time, I can successfully make a new habit to replace a negative one. I can start another habit change once the first one is solid. It's slow but better than overwhelming myself with too many new habit changes at a time. You don't give up as easily on just one change. I've learned to stop being so hard on myself, to focus primarily on one habit, taking small steps steadily, knowing I will have "bad days" but that that's just part of the habit changing process. This book seems to have you work on more than one habit at a time but although I benefit from setting goals for other healthy choices, I have only one dominant habit out of the 5 I'm keeping track of, at a time. Once it's met, one of the other 5 items will become dominant. I'm actually doing well with all of the habits right now, at this moment, which is just an extra plus as far as I'm concerned. This book has several helpful quotes on habits which help you understand the power for habits and the pleasure of good habits over life negating habits. This journal isn't meant to be an exhaustive record of all the contents of every food you eat. [...] works well for that. This journal helps you stay out of denial and aware of your choices. UPDATE: My blood sugars have gone down 40 points. My Candida has improved. I choose to change the habits I've formed over many years kindly and gently without self recrimination and self abuse. I have learned to be as gentle with myself as I would be with a child. I have loads of bad habits that have affected the quality of my life and health. This journal really does encourage me along the way. There is a story in the Introduction about a man from Chicago who had only one color on his journal pages day after day for 3 months - he had no (soda, pop or whatever you call the chemical big business has foisted on us) days. That story gave me hope. I didn't have to be perfect. His other goals weren't successfully dealt with at t

Love this journal!

I've been keeping diet journals for years and this one is definently my favorite! Coloring in my daily bubbles is very motivating. Most of the goals are self set and there's lot's of room for creativity for what's important to you. Having the daily goals keeps you motivated on an on going basis. I will buy another when I have this one complete.

Awesome Journal

You can use this with any program out there. I made up my own using Clean Eating principles and a variety of things to create my own program and this journal works awesome for it. Recently I joined weight watchers and have now switched to the points system with no issues. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a food journal. It's amazing how the little accomplishments of coloring in a circle can help so much to stay on track.

Best ever!

Very visual at a glance and super user friendly. Best food diary I've ever used.