8 Enormous Food Diary Mistakes


Don't fudge your food diary!

When it comes to weight loss, there are some activities you can do with almost no effort or pain at all. Obviously, running marathons and giving up chocolate and beer don't fall within this category … but keeping a food diary does! Small and ephemeral as keeping a food diary seems with regard to weight loss, it is a critical first step. However, it is just as important to get your food diary right as it is to get your meal timing and exercise plan right. Today we're looking at how to do that through the lens of some of the biggest mistakes people make with food diaries.

To give you a few clues about the mistakes, here are some guidelines for what should be recorded in a food diary:
• What you eat
• What you drink
• The times you do so
• Any drugs you have (including prescription, over the counter, and drugs like caffeine and nicotine)
• Optionally, how you felt at the time you ate

What could possibly go wrong, right? Actually, there are a few major mistakes made with food diaries - some that stem from not understanding the point of the diary, some that stem from ignorance. In the fitness industry, some of the biggest shape-killing food diary mistakes we see are:

1. Not recording everything you eat
Sometimes people think that a couple of beer nuts here, or a 'taste test' of dessert there doesn't make a difference, and don't record it in the diary. You need to check in with yourself if you find that you’re doing this with your food diary; are you not recording things because you don't really want to give them up? Or is it just a misunderstanding about the level of detail you need to put in? Just like on your tax return, you need to put EVERYTHING that is 'incoming' into that diary.

2. Not recording everything you drink
The most common culprit is water - although it has no calories, if you go to see a dietician they will need this information to help build a picture of your current eating/drinking habits. Other liquids that people often don't put in their food diaries include tea and coffee, both of which have calories (as they are usually prepared) and both of which still form part of your eating habits!

3. Not recording the times you eat and drink
This is actually a vital part of keeping a food diary! Although there is no magic formula for what time you should eat in order to lose weight, knowing your eating patterns can help pinpoint other issues. For example, a consistent 3pm chocolate fix could be replaced by a nap, with the same energy effect … but very different impact on your diet. Keep putting those times in, rounded to the nearest 15 minutes or half an hour.

4. Being 'liberal' with you servings
Most calorie counting applications depend on you accurately recording your portion size. If you are the type of person that has a little toast with their butter instead of vice versa, you need to make an accurate estimate of how many 'servings' you've had in your food diary. We consistently see people that have no idea what 5g of butter, 30ml of milk, or 100g of vegetables looks like. Use scales to familiarise yourself for a week or so.

5. Leaving it until night time to fill out the diary
One of the great benefits of a food diary is that it helps force you to realise exactly how much you are eating. You lose the immediacy of that effect if you fill out your diary at night time … no matter how accurately you remember what you ate.

6. Failing to record how you felt when you ate something
Of course, not everyone benefits from an emotional eating diary. Still, it can be really useful to note your physical feelings in your food diary … but not many people do it. Simply note whether you felt 'tired', 'couldn’t concentrate', were 'energetic', etc. Also note if you were actually hungry when you ate, and give that hunger a star rating with a personal system. It will be of enormous value to see patterns with this over the long run.

7. Stopping after a couple of days
If you only record what you eat for a couple of days, there can certainly be benefits in helping curb mindless eating, noticing how much you actually do eat, etc. For full benefit, and especially if you want to see a dietician, you should keep your food diary for at least a fortnight.

8. Not keeping a concurrent exercise diary
No, this tip isn’t directly related to your food diary … but if you want to build a total store of weight loss information, it is critical! Your body will lose weight only very slowly through diet alone, and if you cut your calories too much you can easily reset your metabolism so that you burn less energy. Exercise is essential … and an exercise diary is an invaluable addition to your food diary!