How to Keep an Easy to Use and Read Food Journal

Food Journals are supposed to be simple and easy to use, but most people make them way too complex.
Use this simple system

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A portable notebook and pen you can take with you anywhere.

1. Keep it simple. Too many journals have you tracking your calories, fat, protein, carbs, fiber, and the entire ingredient list. Who has the time for that?
   
   The most simple form of log is a simple notebook. It's cheaper and easier to customise than something with all sorts of charts.

2. I recommend you keep tabs on only 2-3 things. Focus on what foods you eat, and then check a couple other things like the time or portion size. Maybe select how much sugar is in each item or something. The more items you need to keep track of, the more you make it hard on yourself and the more chances there are of creating some sort of an error.

3. Some things you might want to add:
   
   (Remember only select a few of these things at a time)
   -Food
   -Time eaten
   -Portion size
   -How hungry you were when you started eating
   -How full you were when you finished
   -Your emotional state when you started eating
   -Fat
   -Protein
   -Carbohydrates
   -Ratio of protein to carbohydrates or fat
   -Food prepared by self or eaten out
   -Fiber
   -Sugar
   -Calories from fat
   -Activity done while eating (driving, watching TV etc.)

4. After selecting 2-3 things to keep track of, read up and educate yourself on those few things.
   Food journals are useless if you can't analyze the data. So read up on how much sugar you should have in your diet with your activity level. Learn how much protein you really need and maybe Google the role emotions play with food choices if you are keeping track of emotions.

5. The entire point of a food journal is to give you a wide angle view snap shot of your dietary choices. You want to look for BIG slips and misses. Such examples include; going for long stretches without eating anything, not eating breakfast, eating a bowl of popcorn a night and calling that dinner, or hardly getting any fruits and veggie in the diet.
   
   Don't waste your time cutting hairs and nit-picking on whether you should have 450 or 500 calories for breakfast. The small details only bring about small changes. Go after the big things that jump out at you first.

Tips & Warnings

• Always remember that perfect bodies don't require perfect diets. No one gains 10 pounds because they had a single piece of cake or a beer on a Saturday night. You want to look for patterns and recurring habits, not single isolated incidents.
• Change your 2-3 criteria every week. Especially if you keep track of something and nothing looks out of the ordinary. If you eat an average amount of calories or protein then change your criteria to find something that might be more important.
• As always, I do not recommend any highly restrictive or strict diet programs unless prescribed by a doctor. Such practice make life seem far, far too long without offering any real return.
• Also keep in mind that whatever numbers you reach are going to be an estimated guess. Knowing what you eat down to the smallest detail is hardly possible outside of a very controlled environment.

Resources

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