My love-hate relationship with food diaries

I can’t decide if I am in love with the idea of keeping a food diary, or absolutely disgusted by the idea of writing down everything I eat.

On the one hand, I find it logical to accurately document what I consume in a day. I mean, what better way to see how balanced my diet is than to keep record of it? The diary then becomes a snapshot of your body’s current state of health- I mean, you are what you eat, right?

Additionally, this can be a great way to identify food allergies, or fine tune a fitness/dietary lifestyle to best meet your exercise or health goals. Further, I also find that I tend to make better food choices when I’m confronted with the idea of writing it down for myself (or god forbid, others) to see.

However, on the flip side I’ve found the entire process of documenting my meals tedious and time consuming. Though, it might just be how I am executing this endeavor.

For example, if in a day I eat two eggs, an apple, one salad, and salmon sushi, I don’t just write down those items in the diary. I also take the time to research how many calories, grams of protein, carbs, fat, or fiber were in each of those foods- and there is where the problem lies.

Sure, it’s easy to jot down eggs, apple, etc. But to plug in the nutrient information that correlates to each of those items always seems to take me forever, and I find myself losing interest in the diary after just a few days.

Do you keep a food diary? What have your results been?

I’d love to hear what you think on the subject (as well as what your technique is to keep motivated with it). Give this article a like and comment down below so we can get this conversation started!

Cheers,

Fey