You may have heard the terms food journal and food diary thrown around before.
The idea is simple. You commit to writing down everything you eat and drink for a period of time. This could be anything from a week to a few months, or beyond.
Write down what you eat, the portion size and the time of day.
Depending on your goals, you might also choose to note down things like energy levels, cravings, stomach aches, dizziness, and even sex drive. What we put into our bodies affects us in all sorts of ways!
Here are a few reasons why you might want to try keeping a food journal:
Lose weight effectively
In Kaiser Permanente’s 2008 study of 1700 participants, those who kept a food diary lost double the weight.
Being aware of what you eat plays a huge part in successfully losing weight or meeting other lifestyle goals.
A bit like having a workout buddy, a food journal is a way to externalise motivation. You become accountable to your diary. If you go on a binge-eating spree, you’re going to have to tell it every detail.
Practise mindful eating
It’s very common to go through life completely unaware of what you are putting in your body. This doesn’t mean that you can’t see that donut that is climbing into your mouth. It’s more that we are very good at deceiving ourselves.
You might have certain ideas about what you eat, how often you indulge in treats, or how many portions of vegetables you generally manage. These guesses can sometimes be a little off. Sadly, sometimes they can be really far off your actual habits.
A food journal can help you get a more accurate picture of what you eat and drink. With practice, you can overcome unhealthy habits and take control of your eating.
There are several stages on the road to mindful eating:
- Not being remotely aware of what you eat. If I asked you how many desserts you’ve had this week, you would struggle to give me an accurate answer.
- Realising what you’ve eaten afterwards. Maybe it hits you at the end of the day that you went back for seconds, thirds and fourths of that office birthday cake. (Easily done, especially if it’s chocolate!)
- Realising what you’re eating in the middle of the act. You might notice you feel full as you reach for your 6th slice of pizza, but not stop yourself.
- Being aware of food before eating it. There is enough space between seeing a free sample of lemon meringue pie at the supermarket and actually accepting it. You have time to decide whether you really want to eat it.
Ideally, at the final stage, food guilt will be a thing of the past. Going forwards, you can consciously decide when to enjoy a sweet treat, and really enjoy it, and when to decline. You are in control.
Discover any allergies or intolerances
Doctors will often ask you to keep a food journal to help identify if you have any allergies. By recording what you ate and how you felt afterwards, you might well spot patterns.
Food journal in hand, you can experiment with cutting out certain potential allergens, like dairy or gluten. You might find one or two things consistently make you feel bad, and decide to cut them out entirely.
Learn the link between emotions and food
Life is complicated. It’s good practice to forgive yourself when a hectic lifestyle makes healthy eating difficult. But it’s also useful to understand our triggers better.
You’ve probably heard that it’s very common to stress eat, or seek emotional comfort in food. You might snack more when you’re worried about something, or angry, or just bored.
There are all sorts of factors that influence when, what and how much we eat. Recording your emotional state alongside your food intake can really help you get to know your eating habits better.
You might notice that you always eat much more when you’re with a particular friend, or when you drink alcohol (guilty!).
Even the weather can affect our moods and portion control!
Why not give it a go?
Food journals help us discover more about ourselves and how we relate to the food we eat. Spotting patterns and triggers can be crucial to reaching our lifestyle goals.
Why not try keeping a detailed food diary for a couple of weeks, and see what you learn?
If you’re not one to put pen to paper the old-fashioned way, you could try texting or emailing a description of your meals to yourself. You could also try food tracker apps like MyFitnessPal or Lose It! Lose It!, but beware of the perils of addictive calorie counting.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve had any experience with tracking your foods like this. How did it go?
If you need a kick start or some support in starting your healthier food habits, consider as well one of our Fitness Camps, nutritional counseling is always part of the package!