Journaling Your Innermost … Food Choices? Writing down what you eat can be extremely helpful

Food journaling is an important tool in understanding your eating habits. Personally, it’s not only important in helping me understand my eating, but it also holds me accountable to what I put in my mouth. Poor choices happen less frequently when I know I actually have to own up and write it down! This has been a very helpful tool to me for quite some time. A co-worker recently encouraged me to share this helpful tool with my loyal readers. (So Breyanna –– this one is for you!)

Food journals can be as complex or as simple as you want, but some helpful things to include in any food journal include the following.

> Food that was consumed including beverages. This is obviously self-explanatory.

> Various types of nutritional information. Like I said, these journals can be as simple or as complex as you wish. I loosely follow the Weight Watchers program, so in my journal I keep track of my Weight Watchers point values and calories. In the past, I’ve kept track of protein grams as well. There are many other types of nutritional information that can be tracked based on what goals you have.

> Time of day that food was eaten. This is helpful in beginning to understand your metabolism and how often you need to eat to have your body run at its best. Personally, I keep track of the time of day simply to be sure that I’m eating every couple of hours.

> Mood when eating. I don’t personally do this but have heard that it is helpful in deciphering emotional eating.

> Exercise/physical activity. I include all my exercise in my food journal to better keep track of what I’m accomplishing at the gym.

Lindsay’s Sample Food Log (Wednesday)

5 A.M.
- 48 minutes on elliptical (including four-minute warmup and four-minute cooldown)
- 4.88 miles/510 calories
- Ab routine
6:30 A.M.
- Omelet with Eggbeaters, low-fat cheese, green peppers and onions –– 4 points/233 calories
- Coffee –– 0 points/12 calories
9 A.M.
- Almonds –– 4 points/160 calories
11 A.M.
- Turkey, Laughing Cow cheese, green pepper and onion on sandwich thin –– 3 points/193 calories
- Grapes –– 1 point/110 calories
1 P.M.
- Hard-boiled egg –– 2 points/100 calories
3 P.M.
- ½ cup of 1-percent cottage cheese –– 2 points/80 calories
6 P.M.
- Tilapia fillet –– 2 points/100 calories
- Broccoli –– 0 points/30 calories
- Sweet potatoes with olive oil and parmesan cheese –– 5 points/310 calories
7:30 PM
- Weight Watchers ice cream bar –– 1 point/110 calories

Throughout day
- 128 ounces water

Total: 24 WW points/1,438 calories

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by Lindsay Eichelman