Low Calorie Dieting - Beginner's Guide

Keeping a food diary

Whenever I counsel new clients, I ask them to keep a food diary (a record of all the food they eat) for at least three days before their first appointment. At this point, I’m asking you to do the same. Your food diary doesn’t have to include three consecutive days, but it needs to cover three days that honestly represent the way you eat. I usually suggest documenting at least two weekdays (workdays) and one weekend day (one day off).

Most people think they eat less food than they actually do, and if that’s the case, the number of calories that shows up when they start keeping track surprises them. They also think they eat less fat, sugar, and salt than they actually do. A food diary is such an important tool because it helps you see all this information. In the following sections, I show you how to keep a food diary and what you can find from the information you gather from having one.

If you start your food diary before you start your diet, you’ll use it to assess your current eating habits and figure out where you have room for improvement. At the end of the day, when you look at your diary, you’ll have most of the information you need to set behavior goals, reshape your diet, refigure your calorie allowance, and keep track of your progress.

You have several ways to keep a food diary, and how you do it depends on how much you enjoy documenting your own life and how much time you can devote to record keeping. When you’re busy, a food diary can be as simple as a scrap of paper on which you write down everything you eat and how much of it you eat. You can carry a piece of paper in your wallet for each day you maintain a record.

A better way, however, is to buy a special pad or notebook and fill it with as much information as you can about what, when, why, and how you eat. The more time you spend documenting and reviewing your diet now, the more you can discover about yourself and your diet and the less necessary it will be to write it all down as time goes on.

Generally, food diaries are meant to be kept for at least a week or two, but studies have shown that even keeping track of what we eat for a day or two can help us make positive changes to our diets.

Some people keep a food diary indefinitely to help them maintain a healthy weight range once it's helped them achieve their ideal weight.

How long we keep a food diary is going to be a matter of personal choice, the most important thing is to start using one and when we feel that we don't need to anymore, we can stop.

Let's have a look at how to fill out each field contained in each of the food diaries offered on this site (but before we do remember, we don't need to fill out every detail specified in order to get at least some benefit from these food diaries):

Energy Goal: Simply write down your target number of kilojoules or calories for the day.

To calculate how many kilojoules or calories you need to maintain your current weight visit our Daily Energy Needs Calculator.

Date: Write down the relevant date.

Time: Write down the time of each meal (there is an option to record up to six meals per day, including snacks).

Food/Drink Item: Write a description of what you eat and drink at each meal (e.g. Salad Sandwich).

Qty: Write down how many serves of the food/drink item you consume (e.g. 2).

Protein: (Optional) Write down how many grams of protein are contained in what you've consumed - for this information refer to the nutritional information panel printed on the packaging of the food and drink you consume or consult a set of nutritional tables.

Carbs: (Optional) Write down how many grams of carbohydrates are contained in what you've consumed - for this information refer to the nutritional information panel printed on the packaging of the food and drink you consume or consult a set of nutritional tables.

Fat: (Optional) Write down how many grams of fat are contained in what you've consumed - for this information refer to the nutritional information panel printed on the packaging of the food and drink you consume or consult a set of nutritional tables.

KJ / Cals: Write down the total number of kilojoules or calories contained in each food or drink item consumed.

Energy Subtotal: Add up all the kilojoules or calories contained in all the foods and drinks consumed for each meal and write this figure down in the far right column.

Supplements Table: Record all of the information as above for any supplements taken throughout the day.

Total Energy Intake: Add the two energy subtotal numbers together (if relevant) and write the result in the far right column.

Calculation: Write down the total energy intake number in the first field and your energy goal for the day in the second field. Now subtract the second number from the first and the result will equal your surplus (more) or deficit (less) kilojoules or calories for the day.

Water Consumed: Each time you drink a glass of water (200 - 250ml) simply tick one of the boxes provided.