Does anyone keep a food diary?

@wheels1972 Thank you

@annamk this is me now, ive got some work to do!! lol

@wheels1972 I love it! Yeah, a little awareness and being sensible/careful is a good thing to do for anybody but I can appreciate all the more so for you.

@Ohbabe If I do I will start in January, not now 😅

@Dino11 haha, that would sort of have the same effect though. Like looking through my recent orders on ubereats 😬

@annamk Absolutely, the earlier one get started working on it, the easier it generally is to get under control. Making a conscious choice (by way of food diary and meal planning) is certainly a good start, but gotta both find a good balance and find a "mindspace" for it. In my opinion, introducing changes takes energy and will, so doing it at the same time as making a lot of other changes (be they nutrition related or working on a lot of other life habits at the same time) can push towards a breaking point instead and backfire.

And to kinda answer the question in the main post; I do think a food diary is useful. It doesn't magically change anything, you'll still need to put in the work and find motivation, but it can be a great tool to become aware of what and how much one eats and make it easier to identify what improvements can be done. You know, suddenly getting an awareness about certain habits and finding which ones seem realistically easy to start working on and gradually ramping up. It can also let you know, regardless of what scales may show, when you've actually done well in keeping to your change of habits and when to not feel guilty about letting yourself have something extra good and unhealthy.

Hah, that growing circumference tends to be sneaky though. Look down one day and all seems fine, and seems to be fine for a good while. Fast forward a bit and suddenly look down again and have that "oh crap" moment. Sorta kinda know the feeling though. I used to be skinny and no matter how hard I tried I could never put on weight, but I always joked that once I hit my thirties I'll start working on my built-in dining table "just like Dad". Didn't realize just how true that'd turn out to be. 😂 Looks so ridiculously disproportionate since absolutely everything seems to end up on my stomach. 🤣

@PirateMonkeyCabinet Ha. I am worried I will start looking like my Dad when he is sat on the sofa watching football with his beer belly pointing upwards 🤭
Where are you from btw, you said bag of crisps not chips but other things make you sound American!

@annamk Hah, well, at least then you don't have to reach for the table when you want to put your beer down. 😄 Jokes aside, I know what you mean.

I'd prefer to keep the country I'm from out of the public realm here, suffice to say I'm from the Nordics. My English is probably well butchered from habits picked up from chatting with people from everywhere.

Crisps I do say deliberately, as I've had enough instances of confusion saying chips. People usually get what I mean when I say crisps.

@Jennisexi It happens at this time of year but I feel I am at a 'wake up call' point which is scary, my bmi has tipped in to overweight and I feel I am getting bigger by the day 😩

It sounds like you are doing great and you don't have to lose every time you get on a scale, it might fluctuate a bit.