One of the habits I have developed over the years is to track what I eat in a food journal or food diary. I initially used a regular calendar which started with a blank pocket calendar that my brother gave me. Now I use an online tool or app at retrofitme.com. I’ve also tried logging my food with fitbit.com and a couple other tools, like My Fitness Pal. However, I prefer to have it all on Retrofit which consolidates my whitings scale readings and fitbit data all in one dashboard.

When I track my food, I also track my water intake. I don’t really try to be precise about the exact quantity (like how many M&Ms I ate), but I do try to track what I ate, like a pork chop with broccoli or cereal with milk. I have learned a ton tracking my food. One of the startling discoveries I made when I first started tracking my food was that there was hardly a vegetable in sight. Hmm, that’s concerning. Very concerning.

Another discovery was that I ate very poorly and sporadically. Sometimes I would eat breakfast very early and then I wouldn’t eat again until 2 pm. These discoveries stare back at you pretty clearly and unblinkingly when you start to analyze your food journal. What I discovered falls into these categories:

1. Patterns – look for patterns, like the “no vegetables in sight” observation. There were other patterns that emerged, like I was drinking wine almost every night. Not good. At least not if you want to lose weight or stay in shape. The timing of what I would eat was a pattern that stuck out like a sore thumb. I would go for long periods of time without eating due to my work habits. I would forget to eat lunch. Then I would grab something quick, which usually happened to be carb-centric. Also not good. Tracking your food gives you a pretty clear idea of what you eat, when, and how much. Look for these patterns in your food log.
2. Emotional Triggers – One of the most important things you can do in keeping a food log is to figure out what emotional triggers are leading you to eat or not eat. I played a game in my head that went something like this: if you don’t eat that chocolate croissant that you really want, you can eat yoghurt and fruit now and eat something else later this afternoon (like peanut M&Ms). Or I would use food as a reward. You deserve this. You ate well all day, one bite won’t hurt. Ugh. Enough said. Get rid of that inner bargaining and negotiation.
3. Behavioral Triggers – I discovered through my food log that I am a boredom eater and a reactionary eater. I worked hard to plan my way away from these behavioral triggers (more on this later). I also tried to look at food as a neutral item – something needed to survive, but not good or bad, not something to be given as a reward or withheld as a punishment.
4. Identify Good and Bad Behaviors – I already mentioned the timing of when I would eat and the wine intake. I would say that it is important to identify the good behaviors (no midnight snacking for me, or very little food intake after 7 pm) and the bad behaviors so that you can figure out which ones need to be changes and which ones need to be retained. It is important to recognize the good that you are already doing. It isn’t all negative. It’s important to recognize this difference.
5. Incorporate Changes Slowly – One of the keys to success to staying healthy (IMHO) is to take things slowly and not try to incorporate 500 changes all at once. First, you can’t keep all of those changes straight, and second, it is hard to make a habit of all of those changes at once. So, I chose to focus on one change at a time until it was second nature, or at least easy enough to get it done each week. For example, when I discovered the lack of veggies in my life, I tried to incorporate one more vegetable into my meals for each day. I started planning what vegetable it would be and then making sure that happened. I ate a lot of carrots and hummus until I got bored with that, then I switched to snap peas and hummus. The point is, make one change, and incorporate it slowly into your daily routine. When that is done, incorporate another change. Before you know it, you’ve made a whole host of positive changes that are sustainable and second nature.

Do you track your food, and if so, how do you track it? What have you discovered?