Good morning! Welcome to Week 6 of the Outside the Box Challenge!

First, we want to announce the winners of the SPRI Fitness Fantasy: Marianne and Laura! Please email Rachel at Rachel@sheddingit.com with your mailing addresses so we can have your SPRI home fitness kit sent out to you!

Now onto this week’s challenge: the Note Your Nibbles Test!

For this week’s challenge, we want you to go outside your comfort zone and take a look at what you’re eating and why you’re eating it. Numerous studies have shown that dieters who keep a food journal are more successful than those who do not. Whether it’s because you can honestly remember what you ate or because the thought of writing down “An extra large Slurpee and a bag of Doritos” makes you not so hungry after all…it seems to work! But we want you to go a little deeper with it. It isn’t always about what you eat; it’s also about why you eat. So for this week’s challenge:

• Write down everything you eat and drink for an entire day or photograph everything you eat for an entire day.
• Also make note of how you felt at the beginning of each meal and the end of each meal. Were you stressed? Happy? Sad?

Once you’ve noted your nibbles, share your experience with everyone! We want to hear…did taking a picture of your fast food lunch make you depressed but a picture of your salad make you feel good? Did you eat more when you were stressed? How has this affected your thoughts on food and diet? 

Besides being entered to win the grand prize, anyone who submits an entry this week will be entered to win one of two books! We have the Mayo Clinic Diet Book and Mayo Clinic Diet Journal, a healthy and sane approach to eating, and a way to keep noting your nibbles. We also have a signed copy of Tom Venuto’s The Body Fat Solution which Rachel read and liked. This book has tons of great tips for ending emotional eating and has great questions to ask yourself about why you eat certain things.

You have until Sunday, April 11 at 11:59 am PST to report in for the challenge. Submit entries here. Good luck!