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Track Unhealthy Habits With a Diet Journal

Spot Trends; Learn Where To Make Changes

Oct 25, 2008 Laura Griffith

The first step to getting any diet on track, whether for weight loss or nutrition reasons, is finding out what's going right and what's going wrong.

One of the most efficient ways to accomplish this is by keeping a written record of one’s eating habits.

Step One: Starting and Keeping a Diet Journal

Whether a diet journal is kept in a notebook or a planner, on a Word Processor document or a blog, it still serves the same purpose.

One easy option is available at www.mypyramid.gov, which is a helpful online tool with lots of information on diet and nutrition as well as a free online diet tracker that calculates one’s calories, minerals and other nutrients as it goes along.

No matter the method, a dieter should first pick a day to start and determine how long the journal will go – a week, a month, three months, a year, etc. The longer the better, but as long as it goes at least a week, he or she will begin to spot patterns.

The journal should be updated throughout the day, every day, to maintain accuracy. The dieter may want to keep track of what foods he or she eats throughout the day along with quantity, moods, environment and time eaten associated with those foods.

Step Two: Evaluating a Diet Journal

Once a journal has been kept for at least a week, the dieter can begin to analyze his or her results and spot unhealthy trends that need to be fixed.

When going over the journal’s entries, a dieter should ask himself or herself the following questions:
What time of the day did I eat the most/least?
Were my portion sizes more than I needed/enough to satiate my hunger?
Were the majority of the foods I ate healthy/full of empty calories?
How many times did I eat out?
Did I eat when I was hungry/for entertainment?
What moods was I in when I ate my “problem foods”?

If the dieter determines that he or she ate at a fast food restaurant for more than 3 meals during the week, he or she may consider that a problem, for example.

If a dieter sees that he or she ate well all week, but pigged out on chips and dip every evening while watching his or her favorite TV shows, that may be a problem.

Step Three: Making Changes Based on Discovery

Once a dieter has identified some of his or her eating habits that are positive, he or she can create a nutrition plan that steps those habits up and capitalizes on them.

Then, he or she can target the more unhealthy eating habits, one by one if need be, to slowly eliminate them from his or her daily routine to improve his or her diet on the whole.

The copyright of the article Track Unhealthy Habits With a Diet Journal in Nutrition is owned by Laura Griffith. Permission to republish Track Unhealthy Habits With a Diet Journal in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Food journal illustration