Plenty of people have found success through tracking their food in a journal or app — including participants of the 12-month Diabetes Prevention and Management program. However, food tracking is not a one-size-fits-all solution for weight loss or better health. Some people benefit from it, others use it for a little while before switching to a new tactic, and others can find it less than beneficial.
I can’t tell you whether food tracking is the best option for you, but I can let you know all about food tracking, its pros and cons so you can make the final call for yourself.
What Is Food Tracking?
So, what even is food tracking? It’s exactly what it sounds like!
You’ll need to track what you eat and drink each day. Not only does this mean recording what you’re eating, but it also means keeping track of how much you’re consuming! You’ll want to include everything you eat or drink — and, yes, that includes any mid-afternoon snacks or cups of coffee.
By tracking your food intake each day, you’ll have an accurate insight into your eating habits, giving you the power to make more informed decisions moving forward. You can even use the information you gain from food tracking to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) eating goals.
How To Track Your Food
Tracking your food is simple, especially thanks to today’s food tracking apps. The hard part is being consistent and accurate. It’s all too easy to slack off one day and slip into bad habits.
You’ll want to record at least these two items below in an app like My Fitness Pal, Lose it or MacroFactor.
What you’re eating: Record the foods and drinks you consume throughout the day. Note how it’s prepared, and don’t forget to include any toppings, sauces, dressings, or condiments to get the complete picture!
How much you’re eating: Document how much you’re eating to get an even better idea of your habits. Use a food scale and measure your food for the best results.
The rest of these are more specific and definitely can be beneficial, but more for an advanced person who has the time and energy to dig deep into their gut health and habits.
When you’re eating: If possible, note the time you’re eating. Did you reach for a bag of chips at 9 p.m., or was your breakfast burrito more of a brunch burrito?
What you’re doing: Whether you’re watching television, scrolling through social media, or eating with a friend, you’ll want to keep track of what you do when eating. The reason is to understand how distracted or mindful you are when eating.
Who you’re eating with: Were you eating alone or with someone, such as a friend, spouse, child, or colleague?
How you’re feeling: Also, pay attention to and record your emotions. Did you feel happy after eating that? Energized? Depressed? Yes, food affects our mood!
Once you’ve collected enough information, it’s time to look back at your records for patterns, habits, or trends. You might notice that your diet isn’t as healthy as you thought, or maybe you eat unhealthy snacks when you’re stressed, or you’re drinking beverages with added sugar several times a day. Tracking your food will give you a closer look at what you’re putting into your body on a daily basis, and you can then use these insights to make positive changes.
It can be easy to become obsessive over tracking your food, but that’s the last thing you want to do. Accept that you’ll never be able to perfectly record precisely how much you eat and drink — nor should you strive to. Instead, you can eyeball portion sizes and log your food intake into your food journal or fitness tracking app.
The Pros Of Food Tracking
Food tracking can:
Help You Meet Weight Loss Goals
Food tracking has helped many people lose weight! In one study, those keeping a food diary lost twice as much weight as those without one — and it’s hardly surprising. After all, food tracking provides insight into what you’re eating, making it possible to track progress and tell whether you’re eating fewer calories than you expend. If not, you can then adjust accordingly to enter a calorie deficit and start shedding some pounds.
Let You Know Whether You’re Eating Enough
Food tracking can also benefit those with a history of undereating or a health condition that masks hunger cues. By recording what you’re eating, you’ll see whether you’re eating enough to give your body the fuel to function without things like fatigue or hormonal imbalances. If it turns out that you aren’t eating enough, you can then increase your food intake until your symptoms go away and you feel at your best.
Help You Meet Fitness Goals
Food tracking can be an incredibly valuable tool for athletes and those who take training seriously. After all, intense training and workouts require higher calorie intakes — and food tracking will let you know whether you’re providing your body with enough fuel.
If your goal is to build muscle and increase strength, this is even more important! You’ll want to pay special attention to how much protein you’re eating, as the amino acids found in protein are key players in repairing and maintaining muscle tissue.
Reflect Progress And Provide Motivation
It can be difficult to notice progress if you don’t keep any records. That’s why food tracking is such a powerful tool. If you have a food journal or use an app to record your food intake, you can have a clearer view of how your diet and food habits have changed and your progress so far. Not only does this allow you to celebrate small and large changes, but it also provides you additional motivation moving forward!
Help Detect Food Intolerances
Food tracking isn’t just good for your dietary and fitness goals. It can also help you identify the causes of digestive problems and quickly connect the dots! For example, you may have felt bloated or gassy on and off for years and only realized it was due to a food intolerance after looking closely at what you’re eating and when.
Create Awareness
One of the best things about food tracking, whether you’re using a food journal or an app, is simply the awareness it creates. By recording what, when, and how much you eat, you’re forcing yourself to pay attention to your food intake. Not only does this show you what you’re doing right, but it can also highlight any bad habits you’ve fallen into, allowing you to take action. Essentially, food tracking shows you what you really eat, not what you THINK you eat, and can result in increased mindfulness around your diet.
The Cons Of Food Tracking
While food tracking can be incredibly beneficial for some people, it isn’t necessary for meeting dietary goals — and it isn’t ideal for everyone. Food tracking isn’t worth it for some, while others only use it briefly, taking the insights but then eventually stopping the tracking.
Food tracking can:
Cause You To Miss The Big Picture
Some people get so caught up in tracking their food intake that they forget everything else. Exercise and other lifestyle habits are thrown to the wayside in favor of tracking food and counting calories, but that’s a major mistake. After all, using only one tool to gain and measure health is never a good idea.
Require Lots Of Math
Food tracking can sometimes involve calorie counting, which can have some negative side effects. Instead of thinking about food as food, you might view foods as the number of calories they contain. Essentially, food tracking can take the joy out of eating and replace it with stress and thoughts of counting. No one wants that!
Encourage Disordered Eating
At its worst, tracking your food can lead to disordered eating habits. Food tracking often involves weighing or measuring food and understanding how many calories you’re eating, which can lead to disordered eating. If you focus on your intake too much, you may find yourself restricting your calorie intake to an unhealthy level that’s both damaging physically and mentally.
Be Addicting
In a similar vein, tracking your food intake in a journal or app can become addicting and harm your mental wellness. Instead of enjoying food and life in general, you’ll wind up constantly tracking what you’re eating and drinking — or thinking about it.
Be Inaccurate
Unfortunately, food tracking isn’t 100% accurate. For one, current labeling laws allow for a 20% margin of error, meaning that a 200-calorie snack might actually be 238 calories! And that’s not even accounting for you forgetting to track and remembering the next day, which may be less accurate as it is.
What’s more — the nutrients in fresh produce can vary, depending on the variety, region of origin, ripeness, and season. There are a lot of variables, and there’s absolutely no way food companies and the USDA can account for every change to produce 100% accurate labels.
Cause You To Restrict Healthy Foods
Food tracking is all about how much you’re eating, making it easy to focus on the wrong things. You may avoid high-fat foods like cheese, eggs, meat, and fish simply because they have more calories, causing you to miss out on necessary nutrients.
To Food Track, Or Not To Food Track…
For some people, food tracking works well. For others, something like intuitive eating might do the trick — and there’s nothing wrong with that! Everyone is different, so it’s perfectly fine that food tracking works for some but is detrimental to others.
If you need help, a little guidance from a professional can go a long way, especially if you’re new to food tracking!
Ready to get started? Contact me at happyhelen@gmail.com!