Anyone who has ever spent a day with me knows I’m always writing notes to myself. Whether it’s stuff I need at the grocery store, appointments, directions or reminders of things to do, there are always random scraps of paper around my house and in my purse.
For years, I’ve kept my food diary in the same way; scraps of paper with my daily calories, fat, and protein combinations, cross-outs and recalculations, time of day and portion sizes. As scattered and chaotic as this might sound, I still always have a good idea of what I eat and how and when I exercise.
So it amazes me that most people, even those who know exactly what they spend and exactly how much money they have in the bank, have absolutely no idea of the amount or type of nourishment they put into their bodies!
Over the years. I’ve graduated from scraps of paper, to a spiral notebook, and now, with a smart phone, a food diary app to keep track of my food habits and exercise on a daily basis. And if you’re brutally honest, you can learn a whole lot about why those last 10 pounds just won’t go away. After a few weeks of tracking, you can see what negative patterns emerge and that awareness can help change your habits.
The American Journal of Preventive Medicine did a study on over 2000 overweight adults and found that those who kept food records six days a week -- jotting down everything they ate and drank on those days -- lost about twice as much weight as those who kept food records one day a week or less.
If you use the food diary in the right way, you get answers that just won’t come out of a diet book. My weight has been pretty consistent over the past 25 years within about a 5-6 pound range. So when the scale started creeping up 7,8,and then 9 pounds last winter, I first chocked it up to getting older. But when I finally spent three weeks tracking EVERY morsel I ate, the problem was clear. Too much “invisible” food; a bite here, a spoonful there, a handful of high-fat nuts, an overflowing “1/2 cup” serving of Slow Churned ice cream! All helped to pack on an additional 600-800 calories a day!
So, using the food diary as my conscience, I traded exact portions, switching to pre-portioned packs of the foods I tended to “over-eyeball”, substituted fresh fruit for high-sugar dried fruit, and replaced half the bowl of almonds with popcorn. The two “small” glasses of wine I’d been drinking were actually 6-8 oz glasses, so measuring and recording that helped too.
The food journal can act like a mirror by revealing to you what goes into your body, but you have to have to be honest for it to be effective:
-Make sure you account for all those ‘little extras’
Many people eat healthily at mealtimes, but snack poorly in between. If you’re aiming to lose a pound a week, just a few extras (eg. a can of coke, a cookie and a packet of crisps) during the day prevents you from seeing results on the scales. Writing down everything you eat demonstrates the cost of those ‘occasional’ nibbles…
-Know when you can afford to treat yourself
On the other hand, keeping track of your food intake over the course of a day or a week gives you the freedom to enjoy a treat once in a while – guilt-free. If you know you’ve got calories to spare for the day, and no ice cream has passed your lips for six days, you can indulge yourself! (But record it)
-Be aware of when you’re eating
Keeping a food diary highlights patterns, showing if you overeat at particular times. Maybe you binge late at night, because you’ve been eating too little all day? Or perhaps you graze constantly? If you don’t keep a food diary because you have no hope of remembering everything you eat … you may need to change your habits.
-Fight ‘portion creep’
If you’ve been dieting or maintaining for a long time, you get used to “eyeballing” portions rather than weighing everything out. But if your weight loss has plateaued, or if those pounds are edging back on, keeping a diary means you need to weigh your foods.
-See your habits changing
It can be motivational to look back on a food diary from a few months or even years ago and see how your nutritional choices have changed. Perhaps you’ve curbed your chocolate habit, or maybe you now eat proper meals instead of junk-food snacks. And if you’re having a bad day, flicking back to a “perfect” week in your diary is encouraging: if you did it once, you can do it again! What you include in your food diary depends on which area concerns you the most.
-If your problem is portions: focus on weighing and measuring everything you eat.
-If you want to focus on a nutritious diet: record the nutritional components (fat, sugar, salt, etc).
-If your problem is habitual eating patterns: Focus on recording time of day, where, with whom, and activity.
-Emotional eating issues? Log your moods and their connections to eating patterns.
If you have a Smart phone, there are Food Diary apps galore. Some are diet specific like Weight Watchers or NutriSystem, but most work no matter what program or plan you follow. The majority have large food databases, and most of them are free or low cost, so you can just type in a food, and it will calculate all of the nutritional facts.
I use an app called Calorie Count and it works well for me. It keeps track of the calories and nutrition and all of my exercise. It readjusts what I should be eating to maintain my weight and can adjust to help you lose weight. I can see if I’m too low in protein or too high in fats and make the changes I need. It also allows you to save your favorite (or regularly eaten) foods so you don’t have to search for them each time you need to enter them. It’s pretty simple, but I’m not the most tech-savvy person.
My son used Lose It, also a free app, that is similar to Calorie Count: it keeps track of all the calories you are consuming (food) and the calories you are burning (exercise). From there, you can look at how you’re doing with your calorie “budget” and what your calorie “balance” is at the end of each day. The app can also be used to track proteins, fats, carbs, and more, including the ability to print detailed reports. Each food type includes accurate calorie, carb, fiber, fat, sodium and protein values, which you can track on a separate page. Add in your daily exercises—including the intensity and hours spent—and it calculates how many calories you ate, how many you burned and how much more you can eat that day. For added motivation, a graph based on your data shows how much weight you've lost.
On the LIVESTRONG.COM's MyPlate Calorie Tracker’s website, it states that MyPlate's calorie counter allows you to set your weight loss goals, track your daily caloric intake and log your fitness activities. Browse the largest online food library, track your calories and get verified nutrition facts for even the rarest foods! You can browse healthy alternatives for your most frequently eaten foods, create entire meals for tracking, and monitor your progress with up-to-date, personalized charts and graphs. Detailed breakdowns of your daily diet will help you count calories and will serve as an educational tool-empowering you to make the best choices for long-term success.
If you won’t keep track of every calorie, carb, and protein, there are a few apps out there that allow you to just take a picture of your food and it lets you know if the food is good for you or not.
Food Tracker Pro ($1.99)If calorie counting isn’t your goal, and all you want is to be aware of what you eat, this universal app keeps things simple. Just click on the picture of the food group you ate from, mark the number of servings and you’re good to go. I’m not sure “sweets” count as a food group, but they’re included in FoodTracker.This app contains no database— just some pictures.
The Eatery doesn't even involve calories. All you do is snap a photo of your meal or snack, then rate it anywhere between "fit" and "fat." The app will pull other users' ratings for the same food to show if you're on track (you can also share and compare your foods with Facebook friends).
The app logs all of your meals and generates reports for you, like which food was the best you ate all week, which was your worst, what time of day you tend to eat more, and at what restaurant you make the healthiest choice.
Fooducate-with Fooducate, users scan a product barcode, it analyzes the product and gives it a letter grade. The less processed the food with fewer filler or additives, the higher the grade. This would be a great app to use when shopping for food to help you select healthier options at the store or try a healthier alternative to what you normally buy.
But, no matter how tech-savvy your app is, you still have to be vigilant about entering your food and exercise.
-Write as you go. Don't wait until the end of the day to record what you ate and drank.
-Use whatever type of food diary works for you. It doesn't matter whether you use scrap paper, a phone app or a notebook. What matters is that you use it
-Don't skip your indulgent days. Keep records, especially on days when you’re tempted to eat. (Vacations, parties, family gatherings) The AJM study found that, "What gets measured tends to get changed."
-Focus on portion size. Practice at home with measuring cups, measuring spoons, or food scales. And be aware that people tend to underestimate how much food they're served.
-Record physical activity. The new dietary guidelines recommend 60-90 minutes of moderate activity daily to sustain weight loss. Keep track of what type of activity you did for the day, and how much time it took you to do it.
Now, if I could only track my spending as well as I track my food, I’d make my husband very happy!
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