Breathe Magazine

Tracking your food is beneficial for many reasons. No matter your knowledge of nutrition, your goals or your current eating habits, most individuals can benefit from tracking their daily intake. Here’s how:

Timing

Just as important as what you eat, keeping track of when you eat can show you a lot about why you are where you are, nutritionally. If you go for long periods of time without a meal or snack, you may be more likely to over eat at your next meal, or grab an unhealthy choice when you do eat.

Aside from affecting your appetite, going for long periods of time without eating can slow down your metabolism, making your body more likely to hang onto the next calories you eat. The longer the gap in meals, the more likely your body is to store your food as fuel. Ideally, you should eat every 3-4 hours, alternating healthy meals, and healthy snacks to not only regulate your appetite but to keep your metabolism running at its best.

Choices

Sometimes we don’t realize exactly what we eat throughout the day- and writing everything down is the perfect way to keep yourself in check. A stop at Starbucks in the morning, then lunch out with a friend and a late business dinner with cocktails can easily slip under the radar and develop into a habit. When you see how often you are eating out, or having unnecessary snacks, it’s hard to miss why those pounds are being packed on.

Aside from putting everything you are eating into perspective, keeping a food journal makes making healthier changes easier. With everything you’ve already eaten laid out in front of you, it becomes easier to plan meals to fill in nutritional gaps. If you haven’t had enough fruit yet, you know you need fruit in your next meal. Had plenty of fat already? No worries, just pare it down, or skip it completely, in your next meal. You don’t have to count everything- just ensure you get a wide variety of nutrients and try and meet your daily food groups.

Portion Sizes

Portion sizes are probably the easiest place to slip up. Things like grated cheese, meat and peanut butter are easy to eyeball incorrectly. Instead of just writing down what you eat, it’s a good idea to write down the portion size of each food. Not only will this help you become more aware of what actual proper servings look like, you will get a much more accurate depiction of the calories and volume of food you are consuming.

Hunger Cues

Journaling is a great way to find out how certain types of food affect your body. Always starving right after breakfast? Take a look at what you had. If it is lacking protein, try and add some the next day to see if it holds you over better. Maybe the sheer volume of your meal is too small- try and add a little more, or mid-morning snack to hold you over. If you find your afternoon energy levels are lacking- add a snack or re-examine your existing snack. One too high in sugar can leave you crashing and craving more.

You aren’t going to have to journal forever, but it’s a good tool to use to find out exactly how you are eating, or to even just check in every once in a while.  I’ll grab a food journal and track my food from time to time, just to make sure none of my portions have crept up or I’m consuming too many “extras”. Keeping a log is the only way to truly know exactly how healthy your diet is.