Last week was a running anniversary. Today marks a whole different kind of anniversary for me. It’s been exactly 365 days of straight food journaling. Not every single day has been a perfect day of journaling, but still…365 days straight is pretty impressive to me.
Some people will argue on whether there is any value in food journaling because it’s not 100% accurate. Here’s my story on why I do it, and why I recommend that everyone does it, even for just a few days.
Some people will argue on whether there is any value in food journaling because it’s not 100% accurate. Here’s my story on why I do it, and why I recommend that everyone does it, even for just a few days.
I started food journaling back in 2004 when I joined Weight Watchers. The irony of this is that I only joined Weight Watchers because they had recently launched their “no counting” program, where you wouldn’t have to keep track of all the stuff you ate and figure out points values and all that. I thought that point counting process was ridiculous and too much work; I’d never stick to it. The way the no counting program worked is that you could eat as much of anything on the “approved” list of “real food” (I could debate this issue now, but it’s not the point of this post), and then you would have an allotted number of points per week for other food.
What happened is that I quickly found out that the food I was eating was not on the no counting program, and therefore, had to log all my food so that I could tally all of these points and stay on the standard points program (called the Flex Plan back then). This was before the days of web and native apps, so I had to use a written journal.
What happened is that I quickly found out that the food I was eating was not on the no counting program, and therefore, had to log all my food so that I could tally all of these points and stay on the standard points program (called the Flex Plan back then). This was before the days of web and native apps, so I had to use a written journal.
Yes, I STILL have this journal, 11 years later! I devised a color-coded system that would show me which foods I was eating that were part of the Core (no counting) program, and which were not, with my goal to eventually see mostly Core foods so I could stop all this extra work of food logging. The blue foods are Core foods, and the red ones are not. I wish I could remember what the yellow highlighting was, but my memory is not so good. :-P You can see in this picture of one of my first days on the program, my diet was full of highly processed food. |
Eventually, over the course of a year or so, I did manage to work my way on to the Core program, as I learned to try and like more whole foods. What I found along the way was really an eye-opening experience.
First – Food journaling really doesn’t take that much effort to do. Once you do a few days of it, you get in a habit, and can quickly get through the process at each meal. For me, especially, since I tend to eat the same things for breakfast and lunch during the week, this is super quick.
Second – You become VERY much aware of what you are putting in your body. Journaling is not about making you feel guilty about eating food, but to make you aware of what you are doing. It also helps you plan your day of food. Additionally, if you end up with an impromptu french fry snack, while you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it, you’ll see how you need to adjust your intake for the remainder of the day or week.
Third – Now, with the help of web-based and native apps like MyFitnessPal, you can see all kinds of data on yourself: from weight charts, to breakouts of your macro nutrients.
Fourth - Let me be clear about one thing here: I absolutely do not believe that calories in vs. out are the most important part of measuring a diet, I do believe that calories have some bearing on weight loss or gain. For me, it's much more about the source and quality of calories. That said, using a food journal can let you see for yourself if there is any correlation between caloric intake and weight fluctuation.
Second – You become VERY much aware of what you are putting in your body. Journaling is not about making you feel guilty about eating food, but to make you aware of what you are doing. It also helps you plan your day of food. Additionally, if you end up with an impromptu french fry snack, while you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it, you’ll see how you need to adjust your intake for the remainder of the day or week.
Third – Now, with the help of web-based and native apps like MyFitnessPal, you can see all kinds of data on yourself: from weight charts, to breakouts of your macro nutrients.
Fourth - Let me be clear about one thing here: I absolutely do not believe that calories in vs. out are the most important part of measuring a diet, I do believe that calories have some bearing on weight loss or gain. For me, it's much more about the source and quality of calories. That said, using a food journal can let you see for yourself if there is any correlation between caloric intake and weight fluctuation.
These are macro nutrient charts from two different weeks – one has a much higher percentage of carbs than the other (you can also see that one day was clearly missing some food). So I can look back and reflect on how I felt, what I ate, and what drove those food choices, along with the outcome. VERY powerful information.
I have found that for me, personally, I simply eat better when I log my food. When I only haphazardly journal, I definitely tend to lie to myself about the amount of junk I’ve eaten. We all have a way of doing that. Journaling keeps us honest. And, as I said, I don’t do this to impose that guilty feeling if I’ve had a cupcake that a friend baked, or indulged in a piece of baklava with some otherwise nutritious Mediterranean food. It’s to see the big picture. It’s to see the trends in my life. It’s to help make better decisions.
Apps like MyFitnessPal make things pretty painless. You can scan bar codes from packaged products, create your own recipes that will calculate the nutritional value, save “meals” that you eat frequently so that you don’t have add each item that goes with that meal every time you have it.
Apps like MyFitnessPal make things pretty painless. You can scan bar codes from packaged products, create your own recipes that will calculate the nutritional value, save “meals” that you eat frequently so that you don’t have add each item that goes with that meal every time you have it.
I encourage you to give it a try. For me, after 365 days straight, I’ve lost about 9 pounds and am feeling great! Have you struggled with journaling or have a success story to share? I’d love to read your comments!