Does anyone keep a food diary?

Does it help change your habits / is it useful?

I was sitting here thinking 'why am I so hungry, I have been eating all day'. Then I thought about it and I have had a bacon sandwich, a handful of chocolates, 4 mince pies, fudge cake with ice cream... so not exactly fulfilling sustaining food. And for dinner, went and had frozen pizza and oven chips.

I know it's Christmas so I'm not exactly worried about eating this badly ALL the time but I am wondering if writing down what you eat as you go works to stop you being 'bad' or if the idea is to take stock at the end of the day and do better tomorrow.

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PirateMonkeyCabinet · 36-40, M

Sounds familiar. "I should probably go make dinner" I say, putting away my bag of crisps.

Not done that yet, but I might start sometime in the near future. Already changing things in my life (appropriately, introducing habits), and too much changes at once risk making the entire project come crashing down.

I don't want to get hysterical about being healthy (gotta live a little bit, right?) but I know my current eating habits are not healthy so actually taking a more conscious approach would probably be a good thing.

annamk · 26-30, F

@PirateMonkeyCabinet Yeah, it's better to choose to do these things than get to a point that you have to. In theory it should be easier to stick to if you are making a conscious choice. I have been watching my circumference grow beneath me and slowly start to eclipse my toes and it is time to stop it 😆

PirateMonkeyCabinet · 36-40, M

@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. 🤣

annamk · 26-30, F

@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!

PirateMonkeyCabinet · 36-40, M

@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.