How to keep a meaningful food journal without going bonkers

Here’s how to keep a food journal that brings you results without making you hate the process.

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My very motivated patient left my office with goals and enthusiasm. But she returned with a look of shame and defeat because she hadn’t lost an ounce. Not a single ounce.

The same scenario played out again. And again. I knew she was motivated, and neither one of us could figure out what was getting in her way. I practically begged her to keep a food journal.

“But, it takes so much time.”

“I don’t want to weigh and measure my food.”

“How will I know what’s in restaurant food?”

“It’s going to be such a drag.”

After she argued against keeping a food journal for several minutes, she agreed to do it. (I actually promised to keep one too. And yes, they can be a drag. but keep reading to find out how to make it easy on yourself.)

The power of keeping a food journal

Exactly 4 weeks later, she returned. The scale was exactly 10 pounds down!

Wow, what did she learn from her food record? And what did she change to be able to lose 10 pounds so quickly?

She saw just how much she picked, nibbled, and swiped food from her kids. The crust of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich here. A few French fries there. And on it went like that.

With new awareness, she decided to use the trash can or a storage container for her kids’ extras.

She continued with her food record (like the printable food journal I offer at the bottom of this post) for a few more months, and she lost a few more pounds each time. Eventually, she no longer needed the accountability of the food journal. She learned what she needed and moved on to other phases of her weight loss and health journey.

If you have the right strategies when you keep a food journal, you’ll reap the rewards of greater insight and better habits. And that’s exactly what you need to lose weight, lower cholesterol, manage prediabetes or diabetes, and feel fit and energized.

How keeping a food record helps you

• doubles your weight loss
• identifies areas for dietary improvements, such as you eat too little fruit or you drink lots of sugary drinks
• hold you accountable to your goals
• helps you stay mindful
• tracks your hunger to the time of day and to your food intake
• identifies when you eat mindlessly or from boredom
• helps you recognize food intolerances

But with the wrong strategies or a rigid mindset, watch out. You’ll make yourself miserable.

What NOT to do when you keep a food journal

Don’t be mean to yourself.

Put on your scientist goggles when you keep a food journal. Your journal is a tool that you’re to look without judgment. A scientist looks for information. She doesn’t judge it. The words you write in your journal don’t define your character. They are simply facts, so you can review them and make a course correction if necessary and desired.

My ugly story

Before I studied to be a registered dietitian nutritionist – ages ago – I’d stop keeping my food record every time I ate something “bad.” I had to have a perfect record, so I’d quit instead of writing down cookie or ice cream or cookies and ice cream. Sometimes I’d start a new journal 3 or 4 times in one week. All I accomplished was feeling horrible about myself.

Today, I know a food record is a tool, not a weapon or a judge. And I know that rigidity backfires on all my good intentions. Self-kindness matters.

Make easy your best friend

Make it easy on yourself. You could weigh and measure every morsel of food and drink. You could drill your waiter about every ingredient in your soup. Or you could make it easy on yourself. Always choose easy when you can.

Record only what’s necessary

Maybe you have breakfast and lunch under control, but you want a better handle on dinner and snacks. Then just record dinner and snacks. Or if your goals are to eat 5 servings of vegetables every day and no more than 1 small dessert, record only the veggies and desserts you eat. But your food record will need more columns if you also want to track your mood, hunger, location, and so forth. In the printable food journal you can download at the end of this post, use the Notes section to add what’s important to you. Skip what isn’t.

Forget macros

You can eat healthfully without ever knowing how many grams of protein, fat, and carbs you eat in a meal or a day. I am a big fan of carb counting for folks with diabetes, but most of the rest of the people I work with can skip the extra math.

Be satisfied with estimating

You simply cannot reasonably weigh and measure each bite and sip for the rest of your life – or even for a week. Measure what you can for a few days while you’re getting started and again every now and then. Use what you learn to make good estimates about your portion sizes.

Pick any convenient format

I’m a paper and pencil gal. But you can keep your food journal in any way that suits you. Lots of people use food record apps on their phones, but I’ve never found one I liked. Other options:

• the Notes app on your phone
• sticky notes that you date and put in a notebook at the end of the day
• google sheet you access anywhere you have internet
• the printable food journal at the end of this post
• any ole thing you like

Do NOT keep a food journal if …

If you have or have had an eating disorder or other emotional issues surrounding food, don’t record your food intake unless you’re doing it under the supervision of your mental health professional. Anyone who gets obsessive over the details of his or her food journal, should not use this tool.

How to get results when you keep a food record

Once a patient brought in a thick stack of old records. Crazy thing is, she never used them for anything other than recording her intake. She never reviewed them, allowed them to guide her food choices, set goals with them – nothing. Those records took up her time and energy but gave her nothing in return.

Time and energy are limited commodities. Let’s not waste them.

Do these 6 things to get the most out of your efforts.

1.  Log as you go

If you write down your intake just before you eat or immediately after, you have a chance at this meal or the next to change up what you do. If lunch was heavy on cheese but light on fruits and veggies, for example, you can pick fruit for your snack instead of more cheese. On the other hand, if you wait until the end of the day to log your intake, you’ve lost all opportunities for immediate course correction. Plus, you’ll probably forget a few sips, bites, and nibbles.

2.  Be honest

Remember this is not a judgment of your character. It’s simply a list of what you eat and drink.

3.  Skip the negative self-talk

You might think it’s tough love and that you need it to spur you on to better habits, but that’s not the way behavior change happens. Skip the nasties and skip the guilt. Don your scientist goggles and look at the facts. (If you struggle with emotional eating, check this out.)

4.  Review your food journal daily

Yes, daily. And use what the scientist in you learns to set a small goal for tomorrow. Maybe you want to take an apple to work, so you can snack on fruit instead of hitting the vending machine at 3:00. Or maybe you want to make a salad for dinner, so you can be sure to eat enough veggies.

5.  Note what you did well

It’s kindness and feeling good about ourselves- not tough love – that help us change better. After reviewing your journal, pick out one or a few things to pat yourself on the back for.

6.  Review your journal weekly

Again, take time to feel pride for the positive changes you’ve made. Write down what you’ve accomplished. It’s easy to gloss over what we do well. But paying attention to our successes helps to guarantee more successes.

How to keep a food record without going bonkers

Hint: it’s all in the details

In the spirit of less is more, skip details that aren’t important to you this week. Maybe you want to work on vegetables this week and tackle snacks next week. Or maybe this week, you want to track emotional eating, and next week or next month, you’ll make note of your portion sizes. Make this work for you. Consider recording any – not all – of these:

• mood associated with your meals and snacks
• hunger or fullness before and after eating
• did you finish your meal feeling better than when you started it
• carbs for diabetes management
• calories for weight management

Keeping a food record is enlightening. You’ll never know what you’ll discover. Scraps of a PB&J anyone?