The Importance Of Keeping A Food Journal

Keeping a food journal is a good way to keep track of the foods, calories, fats, etc. that you eat each day. A food journal could be a good strategy to use if you are on a diet and trying to lose weight. Keeping a detailed diary of exactly what you are eating every day and the proportion sizes can help you determine if you are getting the proper amount of nutrients or if you are eating anything in excess. These detailed journals can also help you determine how you are feeling while you are eating certain foods, which can help you avoid eating those foods in certain situations in the future if needed.
Through this food journal, I noticed numerous things about my diet that I had not paid any attention to before. One thing I observed was …show more content…
This is not a good mindset to have, but it is hard to change when I am not physically seeing a change in my body when I eat unhealthy foods. I have always been a huge snacker, but I think I have gotten a lot better about it just after learning more about my body and how certain foods can affect me on the inside and how they might affect me down the road. Since heart disease and cancer are pretty big in my family, my parents and my sister and I have decided as a family that we are going to start eating healthier. This was a lot easier to do while I was at home with my family and my mom was cooking meals for us every night, but I find it so much harder and almost impossible while I am at school and making my own decisions. Between the fact that I am a busy college student, I don’t have the money to buy healthy foods, and I rely on the cafeteria for many of my meals, it becomes a real challenge to stick with this diet that I started at home with my family. It is also harder when I see people around me eating unhealthy things and I think they look good. At home it was a lot easier because my family did not buy unhealthy food and no one ever really ate unhealthy food (except on cheat days), so this makes it a lot more difficult for me …show more content…
I think if I were to do this journal for a longer period of time, it would show my unhealthy eating habits more. Even if I was not purposefully doing so, I think I was eating a little healthier the 5 days that I did this food journal because I knew I would have to record all of the foods that I was eating. On a normal day, I usually eat a lot more snacks and might choose some unhealthier foods when I eat in the cafeteria. However, I do think that it was a good thing to be able to do this food journal to at least get an idea of what I am putting into my body on a regular basis. I believe a food journal is a good resource for people to keep track of the foods that they are eating and kind of help put into perspective what you are putting into your body on a daily basis. I think it is great that choosemyplate.gov provides anyone with a free resource of being able to track their foods and shows you exactly how many calories, fats, sodium, etc. you are consuming each day. This could be a great step towards a more healthy society if more people would take advantage of resources like this and really do something to change their diets after being provided with the information that this website