Keeping a Food Diary

If you're wanting to eat healthier or lose weight a great way to start is by looking at your diet. What are you currently eating? Are you eating more or eating less than you should be? Are you eating WAY too many bad foods (but they taste so good!) and not enough healthy foods? 

An effective way to track your diet/calories/nutrients is to keep a food diary! Maybe you've already heard that to lose weight, you should track what you eat, but now there is some proof! A study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine showed that keeping a food diary may DOUBLE your weight loss efforts! Sounds good!
 

Through tracking your food you become more aware and accountable for the food choices you make. Having to look at everything you ate for the day (Yikes! Did I really eat six Oreos at once?) you'll probably think twice before eating that bad-for-you-food.  

There are a lot of different ways to keep a food diary. From simple-grab a pen and paper-to more complicated and detailed. The internet based SparkPeople's nutrition tracker is a great one. When(if) you sign up they'll automatically create a tracker for you where you can add the foods you eat and it will track calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates. You can also add other nutrients you may want to track like fiber, calcium, potassium, etc. 

Challenge yourself to keep a food diary and see what your diet looks like. Can you improve? Do you tend to eat when you're bored, sad? Don't worry about changing your eating habits (although you might want to after seeing it written down!) just write down what you eat for a week!