Your Food Journal: Teach Yourself to Eat Right, Part 2

August 28, 2013 2:26 am / Posted in , ,

In the first part of this series, I spoke about ways to write a food journal. I talked about how keeping a food journal is a lot like keeping a household budget: if you don’t know where your money is going, you’re going to be hard pressed to reach your goals. And if you’re not tracking what you put in your body, you’re likely going to have difficulty reaching your fitness objectives.

The trick is to make sure you track everything in your food journal, leaving nothing out. That means every glass of water, every snack, even the slip-ups that you wish didn’t happen.

The goal of a food journal isn’t to judge you for what you ate. It’s about taking a scientific approach to achieving your goals.

1. Food Journals Are About Data

Why do I want you to record everything, down to the spices you put in your food? Because I want you to have cold hard facts about what you’re eating on a daily basis. Whether you’re recording it on an app on your phone, in a dedicated notebook, or in an Excel spreadsheet complete with advanced formulas doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re collecting everything objectively.

What would you say about a scientist who skipped data that didn’t suit her? Science is about being completely honest. It’s about revealing the truth about the world. When you capture everything in your food journal, you’re getting an honest look at your eating habits and you reveal the truth about what areas in your habits you can progress.

2. Food Journals Help You Achieve Your Goals

Armed with accurate information about your eating habits, you can not only make improvements, you’ll be more motivated to. If you record everything honestly and without judgement, you’ll see exactly the critical parts of the day where you can start to make better decisions.

Do you tend to snack on chocolate bars in the afternoon? You might not realize that unless you’re looking at a body of data. When you have a collection of data in your food journal you can begin to see trends in behaviour and decision making, which allows you to make better decisions when that situation comes up the next time.

For the next week, I’d like you to record everything you eat. After the week is over, take a look at your habits and let me know if you see any trends in the comments below. Happy journalling!

– Burke

Bonus: Break Out Your Smartphones

If you don’t feel like writing everything down in a food journal, use your smartphone. Want to make it even more fun? Tweet me the pictures @BurkeCleland, using the hashtag #foodjournal.

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