Keeping a food diary
Keeping a food diary, when done well, can help you track your eating and improve your chances of weight loss. However, it’s not as simple or easy as many people make it out to be.
Pros
- It’s easy to underestimate how much you eat. Tracking it with a diary will allow you to come closer to knowing, instead of just guessing.
- If your calories (or fat, carbs, etc.) start to creep up, you can make adjustments to your diet before things get out of hand.
- You have something to show your doctor if you need to talk about your nutrition or weight loss. This is especially useful if you’re sure you’re doing “everything right,” but the weight isn’t coming off.
Cons
- It’s time consuming. You need to take the time to not only track what you eat, but you’ll need to measure to be sure you’re counting correctly. Of course, you’ll need to look up your foods as well.
- It can make you hyper-focused on food. It’s all too easy to think too much about what you’re eating and allow that to dominate your life.
- It has to be correct to be useful. If you’re lax about measuring, writing things down, etc., then the diary gives you a false sense that you’re doing well when you’re not.
How to get started
- The diary should be accessible all day. Whether you use a notebook or something online (like google docs), don’t do something that requires you to wait all day before writing things down.
- Write down your foods all day as you eat. If you wait, you’ll forget!
- Include drinks, snacks, nibbles, bites, all of it! It adds up, really.
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Keeping a food diary is certainly time consuming; however, as you mentioned, it is a very important tool for meeting your weight loss goals. I find that I have the easiest time by keeping an Excel diary. I am also considering using Google Spreadsheets, which would allow me to access the same file from any computer.