Food Journal

[Sportsmedjosh]

Keeping a Daily Food Journal


In order to determine how much food you need and how much you actually consume, an activity and food journal should be maintained. A journal is a notebook to record the foods you eat, when you eat them, how you felt when you consumed the foods, and how much you exercise.

These guidelines need to be followed:

Record your weight weekly.
To determine accurate progress, record your weight weekly using the same scales and if possible weigh yourself unclothed.


Record your physical activity.
Record activity performed, level of performance, and duration.


Record your emotions.
What were you feeling when you ate? Where you happy, sad, angry, or actually hungry?


Record EVERYTHING you eat and the amount.
In other words, if you Bite it – Write it. If you have 3 M&M’s record it in your journal. If you had 2 bites of ice cream – record it.


Record all information immediately after consuming the food.
You don’t want to forget foods or your feelings; your feeling can change several times during the day.


Calculate your journal at the end of each day.
Determine and total calories consumed for the day.


Congratulate your efforts for a good day.
If you maintained an accurate journal congratulate yourself. If you
did not, strive to make a better effort tomorrow.

[livewell]

It is amazing how many calories I was consuming prior to jouralizing everything I ate. This is a very eye opening effort. Wow.
It's takes a little effort to calculate the calories and measure the portions, but I'm confident that I will see results and reprogram my bad eating habits now that I am conscious of what I am choosing to eat.

[Sportsmedjosh]

Don't get to caught up with calories, I would suggest writing down meals you like to eat that are healthy and within your budget then mixing certain ones around so you know which meals you can eat, without going over. Counting every calorie will cause you to go crazy, I've seen a lot of people who counting that have disordered eatting patterns, which could turn into a eating disorder.

[livewell]

gotcha.

[desperate housewife]

Should I just estimate the serving size and the appropriate calories for that serving? I'm asking because I don't always have time to measure out exactly what I eat. When nutrition info says a serving size in grams...how can I look at that and think oh thats X cups (I can visualize size in cups better than grams)?

Thanks