how to keep a food journal

1. z
Why Keep a
Food
Journal?
The importance of
knowing what you are
eating

2. z
Built in
Mindfulness
Often we eat and don’t remember what we ate
10 minutes later
A food journal helps you stay conscious of what
you are eating from day to day
It can be shocking and surprising—if you are
being honest with yourself
It lets you see if you are eating because of
boredom, hunger, emotions, stress, or others’
influence
Tracking your diet in a food journal is one of the
best routes to success and changing habits

3. z
Tracking Food
for Elimination
Diet
Keeps careful track of
how you are reacting to
foods: physically,
mentally, emotionally
Especially important for
an elimination diet

4. z
Things to
Include in
Your Food
Journal
Date and time of day
What you ate
Approximate amount (don’t have to get exact)
How you felt before you ate (bored, hungry,
stressed)
How you felt right afterwards and how you felt 1-2
hours later
Write DOWN everything—even if it’s a snack or 2
pieces of candy when you walked down the hall

5. z
Nutrition
 A food journal helps us see the places where you may be
missing nutrition
 A food journal helps us look at your weak spots, i.e.,
snacking at night, munchies mid morning, etc.
 A food journal helps us see where and why you may be not
losing weight
 A food journal helps you be accountable to yourself and to
me

6. z
z
Keep in mind…
I will never ‘scold’ you if
you get off track or eat
something
unhealthy/fattening 

7. z
Food Journal
Homework
I can give you a form to use, but you are welcome to
just jot information in a notebook as long as you
include:
 date
 Time of day
 what you ate
 Amount
 why you ate
 how you felt later

8. z
z
Record intake as
close to when
you ate it as
possible

9. z
Be as Accurate as Possible
 An alarming amount of people tend to underestimate their food intake
when keeping a journal
 Be ACCURATE
 If you’re making it look good it wont help you!
 Example: “I only ate ONE cookie!”