Why You Should Keep a Food Journal

The world has taught us to be impatient.

From cell phones to social media, we are conditioned to expect instant connections, information, gratification, and results. When we start working out, we want to see the weight loss almost overnight; when we get sick, we want to see a doctor immediately, not after waiting; and when we take medicine—especially pain medication—we want it to start working as soon as it goes down the hatch.

But it doesn’t work that way. Results—the kind we actually want to see—take time, patience, and repetition. Whether to lose weight or see medication start to work (or fail to work, since side-effects are rarely immediately apparent), requires us to wait, and pay attention.

Take Notes

So when it comes to our diet, it is easy to pretend that we are in control, aware, and deliberate in the food choices we make. But if you aren’t keeping a food journal, how quickly can you recall what you ate last night, last week, or last month for dinner?

The food we eat can have a dramatic impact on our lives, health, and happiness, but few of us actually make a habit of keeping track of our diet, beyond ensuring there is something to eat when we get hungry.

Time and Tide

Just like medication, it can take time—lots of time, in some cases—for us to really feel the effects of the food we eat. Judging your reaction to food based on the hours immediately following a meal makes about as much sense as assuming a flu vaccine is working because the day after getting it, you still haven’t caught the flu.

It is important for a food journal to incorporate the time you eat food, as well as being kept consistently for an extended period, so that you can watch for patterns. While some allergies or intolerances will manifest quickly, others may be more subtle, and only become apparent over months of journal entries. Without committing to tracking your diet, you might never otherwise be able to recognize how the ‘active ingredients’ in your diet impact your health.

Foods and Moods

A comprehensive food journal is not strictly concerned with what you eat and when—although that is a good start.

The way we think, feel, and act is often directly influenced by the things we eat. By including a record of your daily moods (just reflect on how you felt in the morning, during the day, and in the evening), you may very well discover some unexpected correlations between your emotional health and your diet.

Again, just with medicine, science tells us to expect certain cause and effect relationships between certain foods, vitamins, and behaviors, but these are really general guidelines. Take responsibility for getting to know yourself better, and discover for yourself what your personal reactions are. Just as with medicine, what works for one person may not be best for another.

Natural Remedies

With modern medicine, we are often promised the moon in terms of pills and procedures—but always at a price, and rarely an affordable one. The idea that we can manage our own health through herbal remedies and certain ‘super’ foods is enticing in part because that is such an affordable alternative.

But that doesn’t mean the two approaches to health are contradictory, or even all that different. Your doctor and pharmacist will share notes—your health history—to do their best to account for everything from genetic variables to prior prescriptions, and how you reacted, when they prepare your medication therapy plan.

Science and technology are getting better at making this health history more comprehensive, but there is still no substitute for keeping track of your own diet and mood—after all, no one knows better than you.

Working Together

A food journal can help doctors treat you, but more importantly, it can help you better understand and care for yourself. Eating is often a mindless act—we have to do it to survive, but even conscientious dieters may not be holding themselves as accountable as they think.

It is hard to argue with a record you compile yourself. Before you jump on the next fad-based elimination diet, take a closer look at your own dietary history and figure out just how often these different target foods are popping up.

With nutritional science changing on an almost daily basis, having a reliable history of your own relationship with food can keep you anchored, and ensure that anecdotes don’t distract you from what actually works for you.

Goal: Get started today, and commit yourself to logging all your meals in a food journal--whether on paper, through an app, or on your computer. The important thing is to get in the habit of recording what you eat.