Thick & Thin: Keeping a Food Diary

If you are what you eat, most people in America ought to be having an identity crisis.

That’s because most people truly have no idea what they’re eating every day.  Research shows that many people’s idea about what they’re consuming is quite a bit off from the reality of what’s going into their mouths.

One of the most effective tools that can be used for helping people assess their weight and nutritional issues is the dietary diary. For some, being required to actually write down everything that goes into their mouth can be a real eye-opener.  There are people who have looked back over a diary and realized they hadn’t eaten a bite of fresh fruit or vegetable for days at a time!

For dieticians, a food diary is a critical part of patient assessment and treatment planning, but you can learn an awful lot about yourself, your habits, and your needs just by keeping an honest diary for even a few days.

The key word here is “honest,” meaning both truthful and thorough.  It doesn’t help to only include the food you eat at meals when you’re consuming 30 percent of your daily calories between meals.

It’s important to know that a really good food diary will be more than just a list of foods and quantities.  To be most helpful, it needs to include some additional situational data.  For instance, note where you were, who you were with, what you were doing, and when you ate those foods.  And you should note how you were feeling, assessing your hunger level and any particular cravings.

Why all that?  If you keep a diary this way, you’ll be able to look back and recognize specific habits and patterns that are undermining your goal of getting healthy.  Until you write it down, you may not realize that every time you get together with Bob for coffee and a chat, you end up having a creamy latte and often a cookie or other treat to go along.  That could be a few hundred extra calories you’ve been failing to notice.