This article covers ideas for what to include in your food journal. To read about why you might want to keep a food journal, check out this post.
All the evidence points to food journalling as a key tool for any health and fitness journal. We humans don’t have a great memory, so it’s important that we write down what we want to keep track of.
Food journals don’t just track the food you eat, they can encompass all sorts of things. Units of alcohol, sleep, grams of carbs, times of eating/fasting, water intake, energy levels, mood, general emotions, workouts, bowel movements, mindfulness, concentration, even sex drive.
What you choose to record is, of course, entirely up to you. You might try out a few combinations, dropping and adding things until you find a pattern that suits you.
For a while, I kept a mood tracker for the month, on which I rated my daily mood out of 10. It was helpful to see that my mood swings correlated strongly with my menstrual cycle: there was a clear, violent dip in mood a few days before everything kicked off. This calmed me down in the future. I could say to myself: It’s okay, it’s just hormones, you’ll feel better soon! (Now pass me the chocolate.)
So, onto the practicalities.
When you Google ‘food journal ideas’, your image results will be flooded with the most beautiful, elaborate, impractical, Insta-worthy designs. I don’t know about you, but I can feel pretty deflated after looking at these images.
At first, the possibilities are exciting. Maybe I could produce such artful journal entries, too. Maybe I could learn calligraphy.
They are enchantingly colourful and cutesy. But, realistically, I wouldn’t last a week. (Seriously, who has the time for a daily food plan wheel?!)
With the average working adult in mind, I thought I’d share a typical week of my food journal. It’s simple and keeps track of things I care about: food intake, veggie colours on my plate, workouts, energy levels throughout the day, alcohol consumption, and special treats.
It is not the most perfect thing on the internet, but it’s simple and it works.
Hopefully, my journal is not intimidating.
One important thing to note is not to beat yourself up if a day (or week) goes a little pear-shaped. It happens. Keep going and keep trying.
You can see that on Thursday, I drank a bit much and suffered the consequences the next day. Should I remember the pain of Friday’s hangover next time I’m out with friends? Yes. Should I worry about working off the calories well into next week? No. Move on.
Ideally, keeping a food journal should be a source of joy and self-learning, not guilt and self-hate. Make your journal work for you, not the other way around.
Good luck, and happy journalling!
