Several months ago I read an article on US News about how keeping a food journal is helpful to weight loss.
Keeping a food journal is helpful to weight loss? No kidding!
Most of us know by now that if we want to really lose weight we have to track our intake. It’s too easy to let things slide and conveniently forget bites when we aren’t tracking.
Now that I’m reading Potatoes Not Prozac and following the plan in there tracking my meals and how I’m feeling is even more important. I’ve moved back to using pen and paper in a cute notebook:
There are several different ways to keep a food journal. I’ve tried them all at this point and these are my favorites:
- Online calorie tracker. You can use a online calorie counter application like My Fitness Pal or Daily Burn to track your calories. Software like this take a lot of the effort and guess work out of journaling your food and calculating your calories.
Pen and paper. Pen and paper can sometimes be easier than using a web based software. It also can be good if you aren’t counting calories but still want to track the food you ate in some way. You can write what you ate along with portion information, how you felt, or whatever you feel like tracking as well. If you need a bit of structure, many people use and recommend the Fitbook: Fitness and Nutrition Journal.- Food photo journal. I love doing a photo journal of my food. It reminds me to eat pretty things and to keep my portions reasonable. There are plenty of options for keeping a photo food journal, from using a fancy dslr and blogging to just snapping iphone photos for your own personal use. If you want to share for accountability some people use sites like Instagram or Twitter for this.
With all the different ways you can track and journal your food it’s hard to think of reasons why you can’t.
If one method doesn’t work for you or isn’t working currently try switching it up and using another method. Changing how you journal your food will make you take a closer look at what you are eating, guaranteed.
Do you keep a food journal? Which method do you use?
I snap photos and send to a fellow loser :) Makes me think before I eat!
I love the photo approach. That’s one of my favorites actually, but right now I’m doing it old school since I need to include other info like how I’m feeling. Good way to do it though!
I use myfitnesspal. I still remember when I originally signed up that I was told to forget Weight Watchers because this is better and free. I’m still using it and to date, I’ve lost 50lbs with MyFitnessPal.com! You have to track what you eat because mindless eating = more calories going in and you’re under no illusion that the bowl of pasta really isn’t that good for you after all. I’ve learned so much about nutrition alongside just the number of calories with MFP.
Congrats on the success! I really like MFP too. It’s great if you want to calorie count while tracking.
I do keep a food journal, but its none of the methods you listed. I have an excel workbook set up that has 2 pages. One which finds the P+ values of any foods I eat (and is a database of foods for easy reference) and one which is the actual diary, adding up my daily P+ as I eat them, as well as finding my activity points I’ve earned, and finding several totals at the end of the week including a countdown of how many P+ I did not use. :)
Nice! I should add that to the list. There are obviously a lot more options than what I listed, those are just my personal faves. I’m an excel hater so I tend to avoid it. I know that would work well for a lot of people though – great idea!
I also bought a pretty notebook to write down my daily wins/fails and keep track of what I’m putting in my belly. I also put my weekly measurements in this journal which makes me work a little harder so I can see the change in inches on paper. I’ve only very recently started blogging to hold myself accountable and make me fearful of failure, since there’s a bit of an audience. I also take pictures of my pretty/yummy meals to look back and remind myself that clean eating is also delicious and easy.
I find when I don’t at least jot my meals and snacks down, the weight creeps up. If I ignore my journal, I ignore clean eating. Love this post.
I actually track mine right in my blog. I write the amount like: 3oz of roasted chicken — 140. I total it for that meal and then after that I write what I was thinking. So far, I’m liking it but my plan is pretty simple. LOL At least I’m trying to keep it simple. That was my goal since anything complicated tends to get ditched!
I did in my younger days Mary. I know people hate doing this but if you log the truth, it will tell you all you need to know… I think it is an important tool – whichever method used & eventually you don’t have to do it or at least I don’t since I get all my foods now.. I do make sure & measure out portion size, stats, calories & all that if I do add in different foods long therm so I can fit them in my program. :)
I use My Fitness Pal. I’ve been consistently using since January 1st.
I’ve used FitDay for over 10 years and have built up too much of a database to switch to anything else. Matter of fact, I don’t allow myself to eat unless all of my food is entered for the day. I try to enter everything the night before but if I get lazy then I need to do it all first thing in the morning before I can make breakfast. It’s a habit and not one I’ll likely break even when I’m in maintenance.
all about finding what works for us and sticking with it.
I know my husband would ROCK and THRIVE with a journal….he wont try it.
YET :)
Lose It! Is what I use. Love it, but I really do think journaling in writing is the best way to go. I’ve talked to people who say they write everything down, but they still go over and don’t lose. Then a friend gave me a tip. Don’t just write WHAT you eat, write WHEN you eat it and most importantly *WHY*. I love that. But have I done it yet? Nope.
I love the idea of tracking what you eat, it kinda help and effective in a way. But, I must say that in order to achieve the amount of weight you want to lose one must have a self discipline :) Yup! Proven and tested.. And also proper/healthy eating with regular exercise will perfectly works together, it never fails. :) Stay healthy!