How to Keep a Food Diary, and Why :

Many nutritional experts agree that keeping a food diary is critical to weight loss success. A food diary creates a conscious awareness of food intake and eating patterns.

After keeping a diary many people are often surprised at how that "occasional" big dessert turns out to be a regular occurence.

While some factors such as age or genetics are outside of our control - we can make choices about what foods we eat.

Here are some basic guidelines for keeping a food diary.

Details you record could include:

• What you ate or drank: Be specific and include everything.
• How much: Size, volume, weight, and number of items.
• Time: Time of day you ate this food or drank this beverage.
• Where: What location were you in when you ate.
• Alone or with whom: Were you by yourself or with others.
• Activity: List activities done while eating (watching TV, driving).
• Mood: How were you feeling before, during and after eating?

What is your purpose?
What you include in your food diary depends on which area concerns you the most.

• If your problem is portions: focus on weighing and measuring everything you eat.
• If you want to focus on a nutritious diet: record the nutritional components (fat, sugar, salt, etc). (NOTE: There are some great on-line resources reviewed here ).
• If your problem is habitual eating patterns: Focus on recording time of day, where, with whom, and activity.
• Emotional eating issues? Log your moods and their connections to eating patterns.

Make your diary work for you - for your needs and situation are unique.

Adapted, with permission, from an article by Haven Logan, who maintains a website here .