From the desk of the Registered Dietician: Nancy Nissen, RD, Chief Clinical Dietician

Keeping a journal or record of what you eat can help to break undesirable food-related behaviors. Choose a diary or notebook that you like, one that fits your bag, purse, or backpack, and get started! 

Tips for keeping a food record

• Write down what you eat, when you eat it or as soon as you are finished
• Include all snacks, beverages, and “bites”—even if you just grab a cracker on the way to the bathroom, write it down
• You may want to include your mood, what is going on in your day, or where you are at the time you are eating
• Remember to document vitamins and medications
• Write down the time of day
• Review your journal weekly to see where you can make more progress 

Benefits of keeping a food record

• Habits become clear—you can see that you tend to become hungry at a certain time, make poor choices in certain places, or drink more coffee than you thought you actually did
• You gain control and perspective on how well you are really doing with your meal planning
• You can see progress as time goes on—new behaviors are objectively viewed when days are compared from past to present
• It becomes clearer where you need to do more work, and patterns and necessary changes become evident in the presence of the collected data 

For the eating disordered patient

• Match your food record to your meal plan—if you have exchanges set up, it may help to compare them
• Consider having a two-sided food record, one for planning and one for actual intake
• Keep your food record separate from personal journals, in case your health care provider would like to look at it 

Example of a food record

Your food record should look something like this:

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