Food Journal Print Forms - Click To Print The Forms

Food Journal Challenge

Aim

This challenge is a practical guide to helping you to connect and evaluate your eating habits.

The aim of this challenge is to explore and open up your awareness to what you eat on a regular basis and how you connect with food. It is the normal case for many of us to go about our daily life without realising that the food we consume has a direct affect on the way we feel, our mood and energy levels – which in turn affect our actions for the day.

Hopefully, this challenge will help you ask your Self questions to why and how you connect with the food and the choices you make. In doing so, you may then decide what the next step is to change your eating habits.

Tools

Food Journal

In this challenge, you are provided with a food journal to fill – you may choose to do this journal over the space of either 2 weeks or for one month. Please print these copies out as a start to your challenge.

The discipline of writing down what you eat helps you determine if you are eating too much, or too little. It also helps you identify whether you are eating enough of each food group and getting your necessary nutrients. Most importantly, a food diary can help you identify your eating "triggers". If you chart what and when you’re eating and your moods surrounding meals and snacks, you may start seeing patterns. For example: You may find that boredom-induced snacking is the reason for chooses sweet foods. A review of your moods and events (a fancy dinner, watching TV) that accompany eating will help you identify your "triggers" and that can help you make important changes.

We have provided a template for you. You may wish to also buy a note book to record your observations through the challenge.

How To Fill In Your Food Journal

1. For starters, print out the food journal. This will give you section to fill out your journal for 2 days with a guide. Print out more copies of the first page according to the number of days you wish to work on this challenge.

2. Begin the journal on a new day.

3. From the minute you wake up, start to record any food or drink that you take. As much as possible, try to break down each food into simple items. For example: If you ate a hamburger – write ‘hamburger’ in one line and in brackets write next to it ‘(bread, beef)’.

4. Use the food guide to tick the category of this food. For example: The hamburger would have one tick in light food (for bread) and one tick in junk food (for beef). If there is more than one, use points for each item.

5. For amount, fill this in according to whether you think the portion was big, medium or small. For example: If you had a second helping of a certain food, that would be considered a big portion whereas if you had a small fist size of rice, that could be considered medium. Use your judgement and be honest with your Self.

6. After you have eaten, write down how you feel afterwards. Again, be honest. How did this food make you feel? You may like to also include a side note on why you chose this food – this could be written as part of the observations section.

7. Lastly, fill in how you feel in the fullness section using the scale. When did you stop eating? How full do you feel? In observations, you may wish to write a brief not on why you chose to stop or eat past the comfortable stage. You may also like to observe how you were feeling before the meal, were you eating because you felt hungry or was there another reason?

8. Below the food journal, there are some questions for you to answer and reflect on regarding your eating habit for the day. It may be best to do this at a time towards the end of the day and after your last meal. Please take a few minutes to answer and reflect. If you need more space to write, use a separate note book for this challenge.

9. Please make a note of the amount of each item you had for milk, meat, vegetables, fruit and grain. Count each item in your food journal as one point.

10. Continue to do this until you reach the half way mark of your challenge.

11.  At the half way point, take some time to evaluate your journal and findings so far.

Interpreting Your Journal

Ask your Self these questions while reading your journal:

1. Determine your motivation for eating. Are you truly hungry when you eat? If not, are you eating for emotional reasons?

2. Compare the types of food and portions you eat with the food guide. Do you eat well-balanced meals with good serving sizes? Do some areas have room for improvement? Do you eat a variety of free, light and heavy foods? How much junk food you eat on an average day?

3. Ho much do you generally drink each day? How much of that drink is water?

4. Take note of your eating habits. Do you eat regularly, or do you eat a little and then overindulge later?

5. Which foods make you feel good and which foods make you feel bad?

6. Are there any specific foods that have made you feel bad or ill?

Things To Watch Out For And Ideas

• Free foods are food types that are generally healthy and you can feel free to eat without fear. Light food are similar. Heavy foods and junk foods should be either eaten in moderation or replaced by a free/light food option. Everything in moderation.
• Try to avoid eating when you are bored. If you find this to be a common habit, you may like to use this time to eat healthy options – from the free foods section.
• If your diet is mainly consisting of heavy food types and junk food, try to replace this with free and light food alternatives.
• When you are cooking, try to balance a mix of free, light and heavy foods as the ingredients.
• For snacks, try to put together healthy options of free and light food types.
• Begin to notice how your body is feeling while you eat. Are you eating to the point of fullness or feeling uncomfortable? If yes, try to avoid this and stop at a level or two before. You may wish to shrink your portion size.
• Do you eat when you are stressed? Try to make each meal a time to relax. Avoid business or stressful topics of discussion while eating. Let your body enjoy the food.
• Which food types have bigger portions in your diet? If you find your Self to be eating bigger portions of heavy and junk food types, try to decrease the portion or amount you eat each week. Try to increase your free and light food portions to make up for it.
• If you do feel hungry, drink water first and see if you still feel hungry afterwards.
• Eat your food slowly. Taste your food – it may sound strange but sometimes we are all guilty of eating our food too quickly and not appreciating the taste.
• Do you have a ritual time for food? As much as possible, try to make meal time a thing to look forward to. For example: Have your friends or loved ones come to a special healthy dinner once a week.
• Some foods may temporarily make you feel good – other foods may make you feel good in the long-run. Which foods do this for you?
• If any food item feels bad, try to cut it out for the next half of the challenge and see if it makes a difference.

Use the above as guidelines to determine your problem areas, and brainstorm ways to repair those problems. Be as creative as you want.

For the second half of the challenge, try to in cooperate your new improvements into your eating habits and record your journal. After the second half, evaluate your journal and notice if there are any changes. Compare the observations of both periods and see which you prefer.

By the end of the challenge, write down your conclusions.

There may be some areas that you still need to work on. If so, feel free to continue the journal and explore your eating habits.

When you see everything you can do with a food journal, there's no reason not to do one! Get started right now! You don't have to wait for a special day or a special meal. Just do it and find out for your Self how you are connected to food.

By knowing and finding out for our Self how food affects us, we have the power to change our life and feel good about the choices we make.

© Linda K. Romera