food journal Archives

Ditching the Food Diary on Vacation

July 14: Sounds Worse on Paper

Don’t Allow Vacations to Derail Your Food Diary

Many people don’t take their food diaries on vacation. Most of those people never restart their food diaries once they return home.

Don’t allow vacations to disrupt your food diary, and don’t allow your food diary to disrupt your vacation.

Avoid using these excuses for abandoning your food diary during a holiday:

1) “I won’t have time to write to write everything down.”

2) “I know I’m going to overeat, so why bother?”

3) “I just don’t want to know how much I am eating on vacation.”

Excuse #1 No Time

Depending on the nature of your vacation, this may be an excuse or or it may have some basis in reality. But remember, the no-time excuse is the same excuse people to avoid food diaries in the first place.

Most people have MORE time on vacation. Will you be lying on a beach? Will you be lingering in a cafe? Will you be in a hotel room without all your usual gadgets? These are perfect times to update your food diary.

Lack of time should not be an excuse when documenting your daily consumption takes no more than five or ten minutes.

On vacation, you might temporarily change the detail level of your food diaries. Even if you fall to Level 1 or 2, you have not failed and it will be easier to get back to normal once you return home.

Excuse #2: I Know I Will Overeat

This excuse plays on the typical feeling that if the news is bad news, you don’t want to know. Accept that you are going to overeat on vacation. Make quantifying, not judging your task.

If you are digging into the bowl of mixed nuts at the Tiki Bar, just take relatively uniform handfuls and count as you go.

Yes, count them. Just counting what you eat non-judgmentally will give you a measure of control. If all counting means is you stop at four or five handfuls rather than draining the bowl, you have shown some restraint. Be satisfied with this small measure of restraint.

Excuse #3: I Don’t Want to Know the Damage

Perfectionists only want to complete a task when the outcome is what they want. Not wanting to know the caloric damage is what makes a person unable to start a food journal in the first place. If you have overcome this hurdle and started a food diary in the first place, don’t let THIS be the excuse that thwarts you during vacation.

Use your journal as a gastronomical travelogue during this period. Jot down where you were, what you ate, who you were with and make it a happy memory.

You will not have broken the number one rule of keeping a Food Diary and the ultimate goal of weight control. Do not stop.

How Detailed Should a Food Diary Be?

A Page From the Book

A food diary can be kept at seven rungs of detail. The level that is right for you is whatever level you are able to maintain.

Beginning with the most in-depth, here are the levels or ways your diary may look.

Level 7: Is that OCD on Your Sleeve?

This OCDer (see image) itemizes each food very precisely, measures portion sizes and calculates calories all before a single bite is in her mouth. She also calculate how many calories she has left to eat for the rest of the day.

Level 6: Determined and Disciplined

A food diarist at Level 6 keeps the same detail as Level 7, but calculates or estimates calories after she has eaten a meal. She encounters an occasional “whoops.” When you count up the calories of a meal, you almost always find more than there should be.

Level 5: Better Have a Good Eye

A food diarist at Level 5 itemizes each food, but eyeballs the portion size and estimates–not calculates–the calories. We tend to underestimate portion sizes (thank you, restaurants of America!). Remember the classic deck of cards rule.

Level 4: On the Board, But No Bulls-Eye

At Level 4, she writes down the name of the dish (example: Chicken Marsala) rather than itemizing each food (same dish: 4 ounces chicken, 1/2 cup mushrooms, 1/4 cup Marsala wine sauce) and estimates the calories. This level of record-keeper is a C student, but sometime that’s enough.

Level 3: You’re Shooting in the Dark

This gunslinger writes down everything she eats at the end of the day and just estimates the calories. At this level, she will hear the sad Debbie Downer trombone when she sees her calorie total at the end of the day.

Level 2: Hanging By Your Fingertips

This diarist writes down everything she eats at the end of the da,y but neglects to estimate the calories. This is just a list. If a dieter can only do this much, I predict the diary will last only days.

Level 1: Take Off Your Rose-colored Glasses

Writes down what she ate today and yesterday at the same time, because she pretty much can remember everything she had yesterday. Do I need to explain the failed logic in this scenario?

When I first started my food diary, I sometimes fell to a Level 1 or 2. Not great, but falling any further than a day behind pretty much means the end of the road for your food journal. But Level 1 or 2 you can still muster the “I’ve come this far mentality that drives success. Just barely. But don’t give up! Here are some tips and tricks for keeping a successful Food Journal.

How to Keep a Food Journal

I found the key to weight loss and healthy eating.

I Heart These Journals

Write down everything you eat. You’ve heard that advice many times. You’ve started a food diary how many times now?

I had the same problem. My food diaries lasted only a day or two at best. Later, I would come across these sad, short-lived attempts and shake my head at my lack of discipline. Why can’t I do this one thing that sounds so EASY?

Two years ago, I tried again and to my amazement, it worked and I haven’t stopped. This food journal didn’t start any differently than earlier ones. I made a rule: I can eat anything I want as long as I write it down. No self-judgment; just honesty. No one sees this but me.

May 2010 had skipped days and half-hearted entries. By June 1, I realized I had something going. I started writing neater and developed a consistent entry style:

Food, comma, description, comma, quantity. Estimated calories to the left. For example:

110 Yogurt, plain, non-fat, 1 cup

Organic food gets an asterisk.

My OCD started playing the game with me. I challenged myself by adding the calories in my head and subtotaling by meal.

Once I filled the first spiral bound purse-size book, I bought a long, slim hard-bound book with a placeholder ribbon. Each page was the perfect length for a daily food list. After filling two of those, now I am working through my third Rhinestone Heart Journal.

Great EatSmart Kitchen Scale

Instead of just eyeballing food quantities, I began measuring food in earnest. I bought a food scale, an EatSmart Digital Kitchen Scale. The scale measures food in ounces, grams, kilograms and pounds. The scale comes with a booklet that gives you the calories per gram of common foods.

The food scale was a turning point.

My entries became more precise once I started using grams. Not sure who I was trying to impress. Me, I guess.

Restaurants meals are tricky and are often the reason dieters abandon their diaries. After measuring and calculating food at home, your eye learns to measure with reasonable accuracy. When you go out to eat, remember what you ate and how much. Remember the rule: you can eat anything you want as long as you write it down AND estimate the calories.

Restaurant calorie estimates are ballpark at best, but I try to estimate high and not worry about it.

I have been food journaling for exactly two years now. I have lost fifteen pounds. I keep at it because each day that I feel too lazy to log the meals, I ask myself, do I really want TODAY to be the reason I end your streak?

As in life, every day is a new page.

A Page From the Book