Increased Awareness and Mindful Eating:
- Keeping a food diary makes you more conscious of what you eat, how much you eat, and why you’re eating.
- It encourages you to pay attention to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, leading to more mindful eating.
- This increased awareness can help you identify and address unhealthy eating habits, emotional eating or mindless snacking.
Identifying Potential Food Intolerances and Allergies:
- A food diary can help pinpoint specific foods that trigger digestive issues or other adverse reactions.
- By tracking your food intake and noting any associated symptoms, you can identify potential food intolerances or allergies that you might not have been aware of before.
Weight Management and Goal Tracking:
- A food diary can help you identify areas where you might be overeating or undereating, allowing you to make adjustments to your diet.
- Studies have shown that people who keep food diaries are more likely to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight compared to those who don’t track their food intake.
Identifying Patterns and Triggers:
- A food diary can reveal patterns in your eating habits, such as which foods you tend to crave, what times of day you eat, and what triggers your eating behaviour.
- This information can help you understand your eating habits and make more informed dietary choices.
Improved Overall Health:
- By becoming more aware of your eating habits and making conscious choices, you can improve your overall health and well-being.
- A food diary may also help you identify potential nutritional deficiencies so that you can make adjustments to your diet to meet your nutritional needs – a nutritional therapist can be of help here.
It’s only when you write down absolutely everything you eat and drink that the real story of your dietary habits are revealed. The very act of recording every single thing you consume means people often reconsider eating something if they have to write it down. As a nutritional therapist, I find a surprising number of people don’t count the amount of snacks they consume! They are also often shocked when they see their sugar consumption and units of alcohol written down.
And a food diary can be used to record much more than food intake. You can use it to record the emotions, situations, and triggers that cause you to overeat or make poor food choices.
The Practicalities
You can go ‘old school’ and use a notebook to write everything down, or else you can make a photo diary of what you eat. Alternatively you can use an App.
Studies show that tracking your food intake for a week or more yields the best results. Do not rely on memory because by the end of the day, it’s likely that you’ll have forgotten something. Your record will be more accurate if you do it right after eating. Remember also to accurately assess portion sizes.
Food diaries are most helpful when you look back and review them. You can do this on your own or with a nutritional therapist who can help point out patterns and suggest ways to improve them.
Keeping a food diary can also provide a perspective on all the positive changes you’ve made and keep you motivated to make further changes and may even increase your self-esteem as well.
Make a note of the following:
When your energy is low (this may well be before you eat something)
Your mood/feelings
Sleepiness after eating
Any digestive discomfort
Where you’re eating, if not at at a table (standing up, on the go, in front of TV etc)
If you feel very hungry before you eat
If you have PMS
Would you like further guidance?
If you’d like help with your health and wellbeing, then please contact me: vanessa@wellbeingandnutrition.co.uk
For further details about how I work: see here
Vanessa May is a BANT registered Nutritional Therapist, ILM Accredited Wellbeing Coach and Certified Grief Educator and has helped hundreds of clients with her holistic approach to health and wellbeing. She specialises in stress, fatigue, low mood, anxiety and grief, giving women the confidence and tools to change their lives in the best way possible.