Introduction
Food journaling is one of the most powerful tools to help with your health and wellness goals. It flushes out patterns in eating behaviors (triggers), tracks progress, and keeps you accountable. Journaling can also deliver motivation and serve as a form of self-care.
In this blog post, I review why recording your food is the first step and an effective tool to support you in making the necessary changes to achieve optimal health. It creates awareness, reveals habits, delivers “aha moments”, and uncovers which foods give you energy versus ones that slow you down.
It’s useful to keep track until you better understand what you’re eating and why. After you’ve identified your challenging areas, you can begin to set some goals to change detected unhealthy behaviors and note sections where you’re doing extremely well.
Where to begin?
When you start to track your food and fluid intake, eat as you normally would. Don’t change your normal eating habits when you begin journaling, since this will create a false measurement of how you truly eat.
How to track
You’ll need to record your daily food habits before you make any changes. Only then can you determine what to adjust.
It’s up to you how you want to record your intake. You can hand-write your food entries or use an online dietary assessment website or app. Food-tracking apps trace what you eat and will give you information, such as calories and other nutrients.
Check your cellphone for a preinstalled app or install one that you like. If you’ve used an app in the past and you’re comfortable with it, use that app. There are plenty of free food-tracking apps to choose from. Find what’s easiest and simplest for you. Some suggestions on apps for tracking food intake.
The objective is to record and measure everything you eat and drink. I know this task is time-consuming, but it won’t last long and the information you’ll gain and use to make changes will be well worth your effort. If you’re serious about examining your food choices and making changes, this is a critical first step.
For example, if you eat cereal in the morning, pour the cereal into the bowl to the level you normally fill it, then measure what you poured and record the amount. Don’t change anything at this point.
Record the details
The apps don’t record your level of hunger, location, mood, or what you’re doing while eating. This will need to be recorded separately, unless you find one that does. Let me know! The more detailed you are with your journaling, the more accurate and beneficial your results will be.
When I say “details”, I’m referring to where you’re eating this food (e.g., in front of the television; at the kitchen table; in a restaurant), the time of day, your mood, and your level of hunger.
Paper tracking
If you prefer to hand-write your intake, write down ALL foods and drinks you consume every time you put something in your mouth (not counting toothpaste 😊). This includes all snacks, even sugary chewing gum and mints.
Identify specific brand names whenever possible. For example, if you have a cookie (e.g., an Oreo®).
Measure the portion size, or count the number of foods consumed. For example, 1 cup of rice, 2 small dinner rolls etc.
Once you measure or count, record the calories from the food label if you’re interested in how many calories you consume.
Indicate the cooking method of food preparation, such as ½ baked chicken breast, one fried egg, or 1 boiled potato.
Don’t forget the condiments added to foods, like salad dressings, oils, margarine, butter, mayonnaise, creams, ketchup, mustard, etc. Be sure to measure these as their calories can quickly add up.
Indicate which foods are diet foods (e.g., diet soda, reduced-calorie bread, sugar substitutes).
Pro Tip: Did you know that 1 tablespoon of mayo is 100 calories, and 1 tablespoon of creamer could be 45 calories? Therefore, measuring is critical for accurate and effective outcomes.
Record level of hunger
Keeping it simple, record your level of hunger on a scale from 5 to 1. Ideally, you should eat when you’re between levels 3 and 4, and you should stop eating at 5:
5 = Comfortable/satisfied (not hungry)
4 = Slightly hungry (starting to get hungry – could eat, but can wait, slightly empty stomach)
3 = Moderately hungry (stomach growling, somewhat empty stomach, ready to eat)
2 = Very hungry (low energy, cranky, mostly empty stomach, urgency to eat)
1 = Excessive hunger/starved (low to no energy, dizzy, weak, empty stomach – you’ll eat anything!)
Record your feelings before or while eating:
Bored
Lonely
Sad
Angry
Stressed
Guilty
Neutral/Contentment
Happy/Excited
Note the time of day and location (kitchen table, couch, restaurant, desk at work, bed, etc.)
After a few days, you may begin to recognize some patterns. What can you identify? Here are a few situations you may be familiar with:
Skipping breakfast or skipping other meals.
Stop at the drive-thru every morning on your way to work.
Snacking when you’re not hungry.
Eating mindlessly while watching TV or reading.
Eating in response to moods or emotions—bored, tired, depressed, angry, happy.
Eating when you’re still full from your last meal.
Eating when you’re overly hungry.
Eating too many sweet or salty snacks.
Eating more around a certain person or situation (e.g., when alone).
Not eating enough fruits or vegetables.
Identify your triggers
Recording the details will help identify triggers. The triggers can be people or situations that cause you to eat when you’re not hungry. For example, in a stressful environment, you may grab a candy bar or a soda. By recording your mood, location, and time of day, a pattern will emerge of where and what you most frequently eat when you’re under stress.
Maybe you tend to eat from the vending machine at work when you have a deadline, but you won’t notice how often or how much until you start recording it. (No, I don’t do this 😊 but I have my triggers too!)
Perhaps you’re in a rush, so you eat lunch at your desk. You may overeat because you’re not paying attention to your fullness while typing away on your computer. This is another illustration of a trigger (situation) that you’ll discover when you record your eating habits in detail.
It could be that you find you eat more cookies than you normally would after you talk to a particular person. This, too, will be exposed when you start journaling.
How long should I food journal?
I recommend recording for at least one full week, but the longer the better. Ideally, one month will show a truer picture of your food habits. Once you’ve established a baseline, you will have the opportunity to study your patterns and then make your changes.
Food examination
Now it’s time to review your findings, which will show your food habits by noting what types of food they were, how frequently you ate those foods, and how much or little of them you ate.
Examining your food record will allow you to evaluate what foods you aren’t eating enough of, and ones you may be overeating. Ultimately, this information will assist in developing a personalized eating plan to meet your nutritional needs to obtain optimal health. Next, decide if you want to lose or maintain your weight and focus on getting started with meal planning.
True Story: I counseled a woman attempting to lose 10 pounds with a goal of 5 pounds to start. She struggled for over a month, without any loss, and she kept assuring me she was following exactly what I instructed her to do. Finally, she agreed to record her food and drink intake weekly for an overall review. On her first follow-up visit, she confessed she didn’t bring her food log with her because after she looked at it, she was embarrassed to show it to me. She admitted to tearing it up and began to cry. She was not willing to tell me what types of foods or how much she was eating, but she was willing to try again. The following week she returned with her food log and, much to her surprise, she had lost 2 pounds! This may not sound like much, but in one week, it was tremendous! She was so excited and shocked to see those results that it inspired her to continue for the next month. I’m pleased to report that she met her goal of 5 pounds in a month and went on to lose a total of 10 pounds by the end of the next month. She also discovered how much better she generally felt. The power of food journaling should not be underestimated!
Conclusion
A food journal (log) is one of the most powerful proven tools for weight control. Many studies show that those who record intake not only lose more weight than those who don’t use one (twice as much weight loss in 6 months), but they also keep the weight off for a longer period of time.
A food log or journal helps identify your emotions and what “triggers” you to eat. You’ll discover situations and emotions that connect to eating because of boredom, stress, or loneliness, and what the effects are of the sight and smell of certain foods (e.g., French fries, fresh baked goods).
A food journal will highlight your eating habits that are mindless, automatic, and conditioned responses. This usually happens when a blend of cues is not related to true biological hunger. For instance, until you write it down, perhaps you don’t realize that you mindlessly eat half a bag of chips while you watch TV several nights a week. Even if you’re aware, you probably don’t realize how many calories you’ve gulped down.
Discoveries are brought to light. You may think you eat enough fruits and vegetables—until you start recording. After reviewing a week of journaling, you may realize that you consumed only 2 servings of fruits and vegetables during that whole week. Now you’re aware of an area for improvement.
Recording enforces accountability. After writing down that you had 3 cookies, you may decide that you should only eat 2. Even more to the point, are you willing to record it?
There’s power behind being honest and accountable with yourself. I encourage you to give it a try. Discover your solid areas and then focus on the parts that have been revealed to you for improvement.
When you feel stuck, and haven’t food journaled in a while, repeat this process as many times as necessary until you’ve reached your personal health goals.
Download your food journal log as a guide to help get you started!
In optimal health,
Lisa