For many of us, tracking foods is difficult. Maybe we are great at tracking our meals for a few days, but then life gets busy and we forget. When you struggle to log your foods, it’s important to remember why tracking foods can be so impactful. In this post, we will explore the benefits of food tracking.
How to Track Foods
First, let’s review what we mean when we refer to food tracking. Food tracking is documenting what you eat and drink throughout the day. Your food log should include all the meals, snacks, and little extras you’ve eaten. It should include servings in addition to the specific foods. An effective food log may also include notes about how you felt that day — tired, energetic, irritable, nauseated. These notes can give you or a health professional insights into how certain foods interact with your body.
You can track foods in a variety of ways. For example, you can rely on the traditional pen and paper to create a food journal. A more efficient way to track food could be to use a digital tracker, like EatLove. These trackers can provide nutritional information in real time. Plus, you can take them with you wherever you go because they can be downloaded to your phone.
Our Daily Log allows you to document foods you’ve eaten from your scheduled meal plan on EatLove or to input other foods from our database and even your own foods. You can also keep track of your water intake or keep notes about how you are feeling.
The benefit of using EatLove over pen and paper or another fitness app is that our platform provides you with accurate nutritional information in real time. None of our data is crowd sourced, so you can trust that your nutrition calculations are accurate every time. Our log also allows you to keep general notes and exercise notes.
Benefits
Now, let’s review some of the benefits of food tracking.
Mindfulness
The American Society for Nutrition states that food tracking is a form of mindful eating, which is essentially about awareness, which we’ve talked about before. Mindful eating helps you understand what you are eating, how you are eating, why you are eating, and when you are eating (1).
Food tracking is one of the first steps in changing behaviors around food. You have to be aware of the decisions you make around food before you can change them.
Recollection
It’s often impossible to recall what you ate last week. However, in an appointment with a dietitian or wellness coach, you might be asked to do just that. Your food log is a great resource to help you remember what you’ve eaten.
Accountability
In addition to being more mindful about food, tracking can also help you keep track of your calories, servings, or macros throughout the day so that you can better achieve your nutrition goals.
For example, if you had a goal to eat 6 servings of vegetables each day, you could check in with your food log to see how many servings you needed to eat at dinner to ensure you hit 6. Likewise, if you had a specific calorie threshold, you could see how many calories you had left in your day. This aspect of a food log can help keep you accountable to your goals.
Control
Food logging can help you feel more in control of your health journey. As you track your foods, you will realize that you ultimately decide what goes into your body. This realization can empower you to make healthier choices to meet your goals.
Despite these benefits, food tracking can be difficult for some. As people track their foods, they may become obsessive about what they eat. Food tracking is not meant to turn awareness into an unhealthy habit. It shouldn’t make you feel guilty or ashamed, but instead, food logging should give you knowledge about yourself to support healthy changes.
Tips for Effective Food Logs
Hopefully, you’re feeling motivated and empowered to log your foods! As you approach food tracking, consider these tips to make it easier and more effective:
- Track your food and water
- Take note of the time
- Reflect on how your food has made you feel
- Keep it short and sweet
- Start one meal at a time — Don’t give up if you can’t track everything for a day
- Set custom reminders to help you remember to log
TRY THIS:
Start logging one meal per day on the EatLove app.
ASK YOURSELF THIS:
What did you eat at your last meal? How did it make you feel? Journal about it your the notes section of your food log.