Food Diary
A Food Diary or Journal is one of the most powerful tools that help you keep track of your eating habits, and understand your feelings and activities that influence these habits. Understanding how your feelings and behaviour influences your eating habits is the first step towards a more healthy lifestyle. We tend to conveniently forget the unhealthy choices we make when it comes to food, so having a food diary helps us have an accurate record of these choices and what led us to make them.
Did we have those fish and chips after our very stressful project meeting? It's 4 p.m. and we're hungry, but dinner is still a few hours away. Why not nip down to a cafe for some coffee and cake to tide us over? Or have some of that milk chocolate bar we have stashed away in the pantry.
Spring is the time for new beginnings, the perfect time to kick-start that new, healthy lifestyle you've always wanted. A recent study has found that keeping a Food Diary encouraged participants to consume fewer calories, and lose weight twice as fast as those who don't.
So what are you waiting for? Download the 7-day Food Diary template . Remember to fill it up as soon as possible instead of waiting at the end of the day. This way you have an accurate record of the food you consumed and your activities and emotions. Here are instructions on how to fill-up the Food Diary:
What you ate or drank. In this column, enter everything that you ate and drank, including extras like sauces and gravies. Include estimated quantities based on units of measure (e.g. 1 cup of steamed basmati rice, 1 tablespoon of tomato sauce) or size (e.g. 2 x 2 inches of schnitzel).
Time. The time of day you ate the food.
Notes (Activity, Mood & Company). The activities you were doing before and while eating the food, who did you have the meal with, and how you felt (happy, sad, excited, depressed, etc.).
Be very specific. For example, instead of writing down "1 cup of pasta", put "1 cup spaghetti bolognese". Include brands whenever you can, and be honest. You won't be doing yourself any favours if you intentionally omit that you had 1 square inch of double cream brie cheese with those grapes at lunchtime.
Contact me if you have additional questions, or if you need help analysing your completed Food Diary.