Tracking Your Food: The Right Way To Do It

By John Curry


When you begin your diet one of many things you will learn right away is that maintaining a food journal is very helpful. Keeping a food journal helps you recognize the foods you are eating as well as the foods you aren't eating. For example, after you keep a food journal for a few days you could notice that while you eat lots of fruit, you almost never eat any vegetables. Writing all of it down can help you see specifically which parts of your diet plan really need to change as well as how much exercise you are going to need to do to make sure that you keep your caloric intake in check.

But what happens if you write everything down but no pounds drop off of you? There is a right way and a wrong way to track your food. A food record isn't just a list of what exactly you've eaten during the day. Other sorts of important information will need to be written down too. Here are a number of the things you need to do to be more effective at food tracking.

Be as precise as possible while you write down what you take in. It isn't enough to only write down "salad" on a list. Write down all the ingredients in the salad and the type of dressing you used. You should also write down just how much of the foods you are eating. "Cereal" won't be enough although "one cup Fiber One cereal" is fine. It is important to keep in mind that the larger your helpings, the more calories you will be eating so you need to know just how much of every thing you actually eat so that you can figure out how many calories you will need to work off.

Write down the time that you are feeding on things. This will allow you to figure out precisely what times of day you feel the most hungry, when you usually reach for snacks and then you can figure out how to deal with those times. After a short time you'll observe that even though you might be eating lunch at the same time every day, you are still hungry an hour later. You could also be able to identify when you are eating only to have something to do. This is extremely helpful because realizing when you're vulnerable to snacking will help you fill those times with other pursuits that will keep you away from the candy aisle.



Record your mood while you eat. This helps you determine when you use meals to help soothe emotional issues. This may also show you whether or not you gravitate in the direction of particular foods based on your mood. Many of us will reach for junk foods if we are disappointed, angry or depressed and will be more likely to choose healthier options when we are happy or content. Paying attention to what you reach for while you are upset can help you stock similar but better items in your house for when you need a snack-you could also begin talking to someone to figure out why you cure moods with food (if that is something that you actually do).




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