The Makings of a Food Diary

More and more people are now starting to understand how much a food dairy can help with their weight loss efforts, but many unfortunately fail to understand exactly what should be going into their food diary in order to make it most effective.

While you can simply write down what you eat during the day - and this is exactly what many people do, that's not going to really maximize how much the exercise is going to help you and allow you to learn from past diet mistakes so you don't make the same mistake in the future.

Here are the key things that need to be in place when you create your own food diary.

Volume Of Food

A critical aspect that many people lack with their food diary is a precise measurement of how much food was eaten.

While it's great to know what you are eating, if weight control is your objective, you must know how much. One cup of pasta is much different than the typical two to three cups most individuals consume in a sitting.

If you make this single error, that's half a pound of weight loss you aren't going to see when tracking results.

On any diet, you should always be measuring and weighing foods when initially starting (apart from vegetables, which you can pretty much eat at your leisure), as this is what will help provide you with strong visual cues of exactly how much you are consuming.

Do not neglect to do this.

Feelings of Hunger

The next thing that should go down is how you were feeling when you consumed the food. Were you really hungry or was it just eaten to ‘fill a void'?

Rate your sensation of hunger on a scale of one to ten or one to five - one being not hungry at all, ten or five being extreme.

Lower numbers indicate that you are likely doing a lot of emotional eating, while higher numbers indicate that you need to be eating more frequently so you don't get to the point of being so hungry that you just want to binge.

What You Were Doing While You Were Eating

A very large number of people make the mistake of forgetting to write down what they were doing while the food was consumed.

Were you watching TV? Surfing the web? Talking with a friend? All of these can provide clues on what triggers you to eat - especially when looked at in combination with the hunger rating described above.

What You Were Feeling When The Food Was Consumed

Apart from hunger, having a record of what you were feeling when you ate the food is a big help as well. If you do do a lot of emotional eating, this will help to keep things in perspective.

Those who eat because of sadness, joy, boredom, loneliness, or whatever else you might be doing, will need to take action if controlling their body weight is a goal.

So, next time you find yourself writing in your food journal, keep these points in mind. A food journal really can help you have success on your diet, so make sure you're maximizing the benefits you'll see.