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Keeping a Food Journal
Who keeps a food journal and how does it help you? Anyone do it with an online app that records calories and nutrients? Do you plan your meals with it, or do you record foods as you eat them?
I've kept one for over six years. I don't use it religiously (did for the first two years), but I do write in my meals ahead of time, and follow my plan. You'll see that I count both calories and points, but I have gone from one to the other and back and forth. It helps me more with meal planning than keeping a certain caloric range.
I'm a person of habit
Here's an excerpt:
B: Hot tea w/lemon and agave (30), 2 egg white omelette muffins (111) = 141 (2.5)
S: Tangerine (47) = 47 (1)
L: Mesclun/spinach/cucumber salad (20), 20g craisins (65), 13g blue cheese (50), 1T sunflower seeds (47), 2T light champagne vin (60) = 242 (4)
S: Baby carrots/cherry tomato (50) w/ light ranch (80) = 130 (2)
D: 2 chicken pot pie cups (270), 1 cup green beans (35), 7g Kerrygold butter (50) = 355 (6)
S: 18g peanut butter (100), 1 square dark chocolate (20) = 120 (2.5)
TOTAL: 1035 (18)
I use myfitnesspal on my phone, and record foods as I eat them. It kind of combines intuitive eating and calorie counting. It isn't for everybody, as some people might find it kind of tedious or restrictive, but it is the only thing that works for me.
I also try to record when I have a bad day or a binge, it really helps me to realize just how much I'm eating and I can look back through my food diary whenever I feel discouraged or out of control and a lot of the time it helps keep me on track.
I keep a spreadsheet that calculates the calories for me. I meal plan the night before, then I copy and paste the sheet the next with any changes I made into an archive that includes my weight and exercise for that day as well.
I try to not deviate from what I planned out the night before. It's just easier for me that way.
I also use MyFitnessPal and I do use it to plan my food for the day. I plan out my food and some snacks and leave myself a couple hundred calories as cushion in case I feel hungry or slip up.
I get a little crazy with it and try to plan every meal for the week on Sunday. It takes some time but it makes grocery shopping for the week much easier.
I use mfp as well, but also keep a large whiteboard in my kitchen where, every night, I make a meal plan for the next day. Often I'll write three or four days of meal plans if I just went shopping. Not only does this help me remain conscious of my intake, but it's a handy way to ensure more perishable fruits and veggies are prepared earlier than those that keep well, saving me $.
I use a food diary to write down what i've eaten. I don't preplan my meals and mostly i don't count calories. I don't need to preplan meals because a) i only cook for myself, have plenty of time with my day and b) keep my fridge well stocked with everything i need to make up a yummy meal in no time. I do not stock any tempting foods in my cupboards or fridge. Less temptation, better for my diet.
I find just keeping a record of what i'm eating and daily weighing is enough to keep on the right track. I've been doing it this way since the beginning of the year.
If i was not losing, i would be able to analyse my diary to see how and where i could cut back. I have used it to to reduce my calorie intake a few times in the first three months.
Just recently I have started doing Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis system of rating my hunger before a meal and anything else i eat and satiety afterwards.
The ratings are like this.
Hunger
-4 - ravenously hungry and I could eat anything right now
-3 - very hungry and i'd like to eat something substantial now
-2 - quite hungry and i'd like to eat something now, perhaps a snack or a light meal
-1 - a little bit hungry and i'd be comfortable to wait a while before eating.
0 - Not hungry and i'm not hungry at all.
Satiety
+1 unsatisfied - I still feel a bit hungry and i'd gladly eat something else right now
+2 just satisfied - My body is relaxed and comfortable and if i ate any more, I would still feel comfortable, but i don't need any more.
+3 Elegantly satisfied - My body is relaxed and comfortable and if i ate any more i would begin to feel over full.
+4 over satisfied - I know in my heart of hearts that i've eaten more than my body wants and i feel uncomfortable.
the idea is to learn to eat more at 2s and 3s and to minimise or avoid overeating/ leaving the table still hungry and avoiding or minimise ravenous hunger.
In her system which is pretty strictly IE, she doesn't even measure food quantise but i do on my diary and i like it like that.
Using her system, i find i am snacking less and its nice and good to think more about the intensity of the sensations of hunger and satiety. If you can pick up this habit and internalise it should last the lifetime.
Currently using MFP, I have used various trackers from WW, notebooks, and for a couple years now have been writing on my calendar my weight, how many oz. of water, activity and what I had for dinner/supper. If I don't journal for that day I still have a little snapshot of how the day went.
The calendar is one with big squares, yesterday looked like this
161.8
64 oz.
5k walk
McD southwest salad
I just scrawl it in the square in the morning when I weigh and usually before bed for the rest. I try not to make a huge deal of things because I know myself well enough to know if it becomes a chore I won't do it.
That being said, if I track/journal/etc. I do better with weight loss/ maint, if I slack off, I do not do as well. Just like the statistics...
I put it in my computer and include not only food but how I feel, etc.
Just started this way. Use to use Lose It, but I had to enter too many items they did not have listed.
Day 2
Poured a 24 oz glass of ice water to sip on throughout the day
06:50 Woke up
06:52 Urinated
06:54 Recorded weight 301.6
06:55 Took Injection
08:20 8 oz Coffee
08:20 Took Pills
10:42 Ate Orange 5 oz 65 calories I wasn’t hungry, but I was cruising the cupboards.
2:11 Lunch 3 oz chicken 93 calories 8 oz cucumbers 24 calories =117 total for day 182
5:18 One slice of thin crust meat pizza. Good thing still a load day
6:15 Dinner 4 oz of KC Strip Steak ½ cup mac n cheese with broccoli
7:30 Shared a Diet Pepsi at the movies
Who keeps a food journal and how does it help you? Anyone do it with an online app that records calories and nutrients? Do you plan your meals with it, or do you record foods as you eat them?
No, I don't use a food journal anymore. I have found it to be very triggering and puts me back into diet mode. It takes all the pleasure away from the eating experience and makes it about responsibility, accountability, calculations and what's worse it makes me feeling restricted, like I'm dwindling down my quota for food for the day - it sets me up to feel deprived.
Without writing it down I do use a hunger scale to help me determine my level of hunger. I wrote everything down when I first started seeing my nutritional therapist but now find that I can quickly assess my hunger level and am not bothered to writing anything down anymore.
Yes, as it keeps me accountable, although I have a sense (in my body/head and in my tally in my head) about how much I've eaten. I use MFP and that actually is much more accurate in my head, so it keeps me in check if I am trying to justifying eating more.
But I don't know depend on it as much as I use to and my goal is to stay on my diet (my forever eating habits) and the restrictions on this should allow me to keep losing weight and maintaining over the long-term.
I do right now. I used to use lose it, but I switch to mfp after hearing so many good things about it ,and I really like it better.
I have to be careful with journaling because it is very trigger for me as well. However can trigger me to restrict and make food choices based on the fewest calories. I do have to talk myself through food choices, allowing myself to eat what I want not what has the fewest calories. Example: Slice of cheese A = 60 cals, and cheese B = 70 cals. I would always choose cheese A even though I really always prefer the taste of cheese B. So right now I am working on not allowing anything less than 50 calories dictate my choices.
On the flip side it is extremely helpful because it keeps me from over estimating my intake, and helps me to really stay accountable for times that I over eat. I've gotten to a point now, that I only have issues with eating too much the few days before TOM, so I feel like that is a victory, that I'm not binging throughout the month.
Yesterday was actually a day that I was SUPER stressed and by the end of the day, I felt starved. Normally I would have thought I was being a "pig" or turning to food for comfort because I was stressed and not let myself eat, but thanks to mfp I was able to see that I had only had about 500 calories all day, and I was really hungry because I needed to eat more and so I ate. In the past I would have over estimated that, not ate...then a few days like that (low cal) and I would binged because my body is screaming for food BUT I would think it was because I was weak and a glutton. KWIM?
Last edited by GlamourGirl827; 06-14-2014 at 09:10 AM.
Keeping a Food Journal
