Home > Tools > Tips and Guides > Food & Activity Diary: How to make it work for you

Food & Activity Diary: How to make it work for you

Keeping a Food Diary helps you achieve your target weight loss and discover your eating patterns. You may realize how “automatically” you eat whenever you are feeling hungry or not. Examine your food diary and look for patterns such as the following:

Time

  • Do you tend to eat more during certain times of the day or do you tend to skip certain meals?
  • Do you tend to eat when you are stressed?

Places

  • Do you eat more when you are in front of the TV?
  • Do you eat more when you are in a certain restaurant?

Amount

  • How much do you eat?
  • Do you eat more when with friends?
  • Do you eat more during the weekends?
  • Do you tend to finish all the leftovers?

Foods

  • Do you tend to eat a lot of fried food?
  • Do you tend to drink all the gravy?
  • Do you like sweet drinks or desserts?

Some basic pointers follow while recording your Food & Activity Diary:

Record everything
every intake and activity may appear minor but they do add up
Record as soon as you can
you may forget later
Be honest
the diary is personal and serves to benefit you so omitting info will not help
Be specific
description of food helps identify the calorie contents in them
Record two weekdays plus one weekend for a week. It helps to identify your eating and activity pattern. And again a month later to compare the changes.

View a sample of Food & Activity Diary here!



 

Find out how your doctor can help
How the iDECIDE Program can help