Food Diary: how, why, and what to do with one.

Good for you!

You’re curious to learn more about how the food you eat is affecting you, your health, and how you feel.

You can start keeping a food diary, and it doesn’t have to be labor intensive – I promise 😉

One of the easiest and least expensive ways to tune into what is happening internally is to start keeping a food dairy. My food diaries (I’ve been doing it for a while) were one of the most influential things I did to learn about my own bodily reactions and tuned me into my health journey in a new meaningful way. It can be extremely interesting, useful, and empowering! And empowerment is a huge benefit of embracing your health! The more you understand your body and how to make/keep healthy the more confident and optimistic you will feel about your future and in your ability to rise to the occasion.

There are many different food diary apps out there to choose from, but for me I prefer a good old-fashioned book or notebook. Here’s a link to my favorite, food diary, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BBDJFND?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_GPES293KTQ455HNZGBWH

Or you could use a notepad, the type any market or pharmacy typically carries such as a small Mead note pad, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YZXPH7E?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_W06JCQ7JQTE5KQPCCTEK

Here’s one that has a stronger cover and binding so it can withstand more handling,

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0878Y5TVR?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_PZGG09NADW87MV7F810A

You can see in my photos that I have tried several style books over the last few years of keeping food diaries. For me the most important thing was that my diary/notepad be a convenient size to carry around in my purse or shoulder bag. I wanted something easy to handle, that wasn’t too bulky, and that is easy to flip through in the future when I am looking for my notes about suspect foods or common reactions.

I like to use a paperclip or alligator chip to keep my page so that I am not flipping through for the next clean page. Just open it, jot down your snack or meal notes and move on with your day. The easier it is the more likely you will keep it up for a while.

I suggest you stick with filling out your food dairy at least 2 – 4 weeks. How long you decide to keep a dairy is going to be up to you and your goals but obviously the longer you keep up with it the more information you will accrue to help you notice patterns in your reactions. I revisit this practice whenever I have new questions about my health or how particular items are affecting me.

When I am keeping my food diary, I like to add a few other tidbits of information as I jot notes, I’m already keeping the notes so why not make it as useful as possible. I like to add my wake time, energy levels or sudden change in energy, significant mood change, cravings, sleep disturbances, or concentration clarity/challenges. You can note anything else that makes sense for you. You won’t need to note all these things but cherry pick what makes sense for you and your goals.

Now while we are discussing a food diary, I want to point out that this is not being promoted as a weight loss strategy or a way to limit calories. I promote the use of food diaries as a way to understand how diet, products and lifestyle are affecting wellness. It is an excellent way to detect negative reactions to food items as so many of us have adverse delayed reactions to foods/products that can feel very confusing to understand without an organized system of tracking our reactions. It can be incredibly confusing to find that a food generally considered extremely healthy is a food that just doesn’t work for you. A food diary that documents your experience will serve you well and demonstrate the evidence you need to understand what is consistently occurring internally.

Don’t let this stress you out! Remember you’re the one in charge. If you miss a day, hey, it’s not a big deal, life happens, we all get busy! Just either try to remember as best you can what you consumed, you can even note you forgot that day and then ‘jump back on the horse again’ the next day! Life goes on!

So, after you have all these pages filled out how do you use them productively?

I typically would notice a reaction I was having that was undesirable, for example itching or brain fog. I would ask myself when the reaction began and then look at my food logs for the day the reaction started and dating back for 3 days. Delayed reactions to foods can take approximately 3 days to appear. When I found mention of the reaction or food I would highlight it. If you are looking up more than one I suggest you color code them so you don’t get confused.

Look at the pattern of foods you ate in those 3 days, now check back through your logs at other days you ate those same foods can you see any patterns of having the same reaction? If yes, then why not look for every entry of that food and see if you react in the same way every time you consume it. Or is there a food item that was unusual for you to consume?

What is the typical amount of time it takes you to react to the food you are questioning? 2 days? 3 days?

If you are still having trouble adding clarity to your reactions that’s okay, there is more we can do to help ‘wash this out’ more.

Hopefully, you are in a routine with keeping your food/product diary and enjoying it. (or at least not minding it)

At this point if you want to learn more detail about yourself or need more clarity regarding foods you suspect are giving you ‘issues’ it may be a good time to try an elimination diet. An elimination diet is a temporarily restrictive diet that allows your body to reduce some inflammation and go ‘back to basics’. There are different elimination diets, but I have personally always turned to the (AIP) Autoimmune Immune Paleo version. This version of the elimination diet temporarily cuts outs foods that are known to be the most common problem foods for people. It eliminates more foods than a lot of other versions but personally I’d rather do the more challenging version and then be done with it, verses needing to repeat elimination phases repeatedly, because let’s face it we are all happier when we have the greatest span of food freedom possible for us.

To read about how to follow an elimination diet and my tips learned along the way please click here.