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Why keep a food diary? - Harvard Health Blog
After completing a food journal for a week
Step back and look what you've recorded. Look for trends, patterns, or habits. You might consider these questions:
- How healthy is my diet?
- How many servings of fruit and vegetables do I eat every day?
- Am I eating whole grains each day?
- Do I consume added sugar? If so, how frequently?
- Do my moods affect my eating habits?
- How often do I eat on the run?
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Use and app or paper
An app or a pen and paper can be used to track what you're eating
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- Weight Watchers or Noom offers support on top of simple tracking and give guidance to your eating.
- HealthyOut is an app to help break down the nutritional information of food from restaurants.
Ultimately, choosing the right app is a matter of preference.
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Ten healthy habits
- Keep a meal routine: Eat at roughly the same time each day.
- Go for healthy fats from nuts, avocado, and oily fish instead of fast food.
- Walk off the weight: Aim for 10,000 steps a day.
- Pack healthy snacks when you go out.
- Always check the labels for fat, sugar, and salt content.
- Use smaller plates, and drink a glass of water and wait five minutes before going back for seconds.
- Break up sitting time.
- Choose water and limit fruit juice to one small glass per day.
- Slow down and eat while sitting at a table.
- Always aim for five servings of vegetables a day.