Tracking Your Food: The Way To Do It

By Tomas Ellis


When you begin a diet one of the most often heard pieces of advice is to keep a food log in which you write down every thing you eat during the day. Keeping your foods log not only helps you see clearly what you are consuming, it helps you see what you are not eating. For example, after keeping a food journal for a few days, you might see that you are not consuming very many vegetables but that you are consuming lots of sugar and bad carbohydrates. Having it all written down will help uou determine the aspects of your diet that need to change as well as how much exercise you need to get to make sure that you burn enough calories to keep your waistline in check.

But what if you've been writing every little thing down and still aren't losing weight? There is a good way and a lazy way to track the food you eat. A food record is a lot more than just a straightforward list of the foods you eat during a day. You need to account for various other very important information. Here are some hints that you can use to help your food tracking be more successful.

Be as precise as you can get when you note down the things you eat. You need to do more than just write down "salad" into your food log. Write down all of the ingredients in the salad as well as the type of dressing you used. You need to include the quantity of the food you consume. "Cereal" will not be enough but "one cup Fiber One cereal" is acceptable. Don't forget that the more of something you take in, the more calories you are going to take in so you need to list out the measurements of what you eat so that you will know just how many calories you take in and will need to burn.

Write down the time that you are eating stuff. This will allow you to figure out what times of day you feel the most hungry, when you usually reach for snacks and then you can learn how to deal with those times. After a day or two you might notice that, though you eat lunch at the same time every single day, you still feel hungry an hour or so later. You may also be able to identify when you are eating in order to have something to do. This is incredibly helpful because realizing when you're vulnerable to snacking will help you fill those times with other activities that will keep you away from the candy aisle.



Write down your feelings when you eat. This can show you whether you use meals to solve emotional issues. This may also show you whether or not you gravitate toward certain foods based on your mood. Lots of us will reach intuitively for processed food when we feel upset or angry and we are more likely to pick out healthy options when we feel happy or content. Paying attention to what you reach for if you find yourself upset can help you stock similar but more healthy items in your house for when you need a snack-you could also start talking to someone to figure out why you cure moods with food (if that is something that you actually do).




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