Sunday, July 3, 2011

Ready to Start a Food Diary? Use the KISS Principle

So, you're ready to start keeping a food diary. My advice? Feel free to use the KISS -- Keep It Simple, Sweetie! -- principle.

I did not. For my first food diary, I entered in all of my meals and snacks into an Excel template; then I entered my goals at the bottom. As the day progressed, I would type in my fat grams or calories (whatever I happened to be counting at the time!) and then I balanced it out with my goal as the day passed to see how I was doing.

Constantly adding up my totals made me very anxious. Instead of calmly assessing my intake at the end of the day, I got a little obsessive about it and checked it every few hours, figuring my totals up to the hundredth decimal place!

Now, if you have the skill and time to go all out, more power to you! You can still do your diary on the computer and not be as exact as I tried to be. No matter how you keep the diary, you should be honest. It won't do you any good if you fudge.

Find out what works for you: if charting your progress keeps you motivated, do it; if the easier the better, just use a simple notebook as described in the instructions below. It's all up to you!

Related Reading: How to Keep a Food Diary


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