Anyone taking notes of what they eat?

[boom]

I think I am going to start a journal. for my food. nothing "dear Diary" or anything remotely like it.

just what I eat each day. I am trying to trim down drastically, and I think it would be good to track what I eat. plus if I ever meet with my Dietician again, I would have data.

anyone doing this? maybe I'll leave some space at the bottom of the page for me to talk about my feelings. hahahaha...

 

[Andy M.]

Back in 2003 after I had a heart attack, I put myself on a diet to lose weight. I lost 47 pounds. I calculated the calories for everything I ate. Kept to a 2000 calorie diet. I allowed myself some flexibility as long as I averaged 2000 calories per day over the week. I don't do that any more.

I found the USDA nutrition database very useful for detailed info on every food product.

 

[pseudotsuga]

I think I am going to start a journal. for my food. nothing "dear Diary" or anything remotely like it.

just what I eat each day. I am trying to trim down drastically, and I think it would be good to track what I eat. plus if I ever meet with my Dietician again, I would have data.

anyone doing this? maybe I'll leave some space at the bottom of the page for me to talk about my feelings. hahahaha...

I've been doing this more or less since 2019 I think. I keep a paper journal, kind of like a "bullet journal". I have a high-level month calendar where I write appointments in advance, sometimes note the weather for that day, and track habits by eg. putting a tick next to a "W" to note that I took a walk. Now that I write it all out it seems kind of weird haha.

But I also have 3 lines marked "B", "L", "D" (for breakfast, lunch, dinner) also with a little space to note between-meal snacks. This isn't really to track calories -- I started the meal tracking to figure out whether or not I was lactose intolerant (I am, to an extent, unfortunately). What I've really figured out though is that I really really like to have oats for breakfast, A LOT. Also it's pushed me to eat snacks that have short names that fit in the space on the page (only sort of kidding!!)

 

[dragnlaw]

I too am lactose intolerant, and I love oatmeal. But only as a child did I ever have it with milk. Now I just have it with butter and either brown sugar or molasses .
Can't remember the name of the cereal with oats, nuts and honey, but it was one of my absolute favourites. I never figured out which was worse, probably all equal, but the belly aches I got after were horrid. Took me years to figure out it was all of those foods. Milk and honey at the top, then the oil in nuts.

As to Calendars. I buy a regular calendar with large squares for the month. Then write in what I had that day. Not usually breakfast or lunch unless it was unusual. Was a great record. Now I often have to go to DC's menu and look back to see what I had!

I have yet to figure out how to co-ordinate my phone with the calendar on my 'puter. That probably would be the best way for me now.

 

[HeyItsSara]

Being prediabetic and lately with high cholesterol, I am very aware and cognizant of what I eat. I see my nutritionist on the regular so I definitely have a list of my food.

Dragnlaw, have you ever tried Lactaids?

 

[dcSaute]

Dear Dr. put me on a "low fat" diet - 7 years ago . . .
I have a record of everything I ate B-L-D for everyday since.
using the USDA database + local entries, I track total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, carbs and calories.
which I sum up by week, including weight... and compare to my LDL testing.

homespun program - here's today's tally so far - a BLT for lunch...

 

[dragnlaw]

Hey Sara it's strange, that is something I never tried. Once I figured it out I now just buy lactose free milk and cream. Hard cheeses do not have lactose and soft cheeses... well, in small amounts I can ignore the ache.

dcSaute, I could probably do that too - for about a week... and then it would fall by the way-side.

 

[taxlady]

I was diagnosed with fairly severe arthritis in my left hip, back in November 2018. A friend mentioned that she and her mother have arthritis and that cutting out nightshades had helped them both. So, I did a one month nightshade elimination and started tracking everything I eat in a spreadsheet. It worked and I have figured out how much and which nightshades I can tolerate without aggravating the arthritis. I also lost about 25 kg by doing intermittent fasting. According to the doctor, losing weight would help with the arthritis. I also started taking a curcumin supplement. In any case, I needed a cane to get around when I was first diagnosed, but don't need one now. And I still use that spreadsheet to keep track of all the food I eat.

 

[rodentraiser]

I was thinking of starting this up again. I had tried it for a while, but I confuzzled myself when it came time to date my eating. If I eat at 1am, is that Tuesday night or Wednesday morning? Dumb things like that. It would be easier now because I try not to eat after 6pm on account of acid reflux.

 

[pepperhead212]

No journals, per se, but I have 2 loose leaf notebooks with my favorites, my "black book", with all my favorite Asian recipes, and my "blue book", with everything else, some not changed at all, but most tweaked slightly, to taste. I started the first one in the 70s, but eventually had to re-make it, to make the Asian one; almost all Chinese, at first, but eventually, when I got obsessed with Thai food, I made all the Thai recipes in blue ink. Years later, when I got into Indian cooking, I used green ink for those. Easy to spot the different recipes, when skimming through it.

I would have to put a journal on things I ate on a spreadsheet, of some sort, but with all those ingredients I use, what would it tell me?

 

[larry_stewart]

I dont take notes, but I save all my weekly dinner menus and grocery lists. They are all on a spreadsheet on the computer and once the week has passed, I save them in annual folders. Sometimes when Im not sure what Im in the mood to eat, Ill scroll through them to refresh my memory.

 

[dcSaute]

here's my cheat sheet . . .

 

[boom]

Dang. You all are legit note keepers

 

[larry_stewart]

Every few years I make a list of all the dinners we eat ( and I can make) and try to organize it. It's more for my wife to help her decide what she wants to eat for the upcoming week. For whatever reason, she has such a hard time thinking of things. This way, I just tell her to look at the list and select a few things. Every week its the same thing. " What do you want to eat this week", " I don't know, what do you want".... we go back and forth. Then she gets mad when she finally makes a few suggestions, and I dont make them that week .

 

[Badjak]

Dang. You all are legit note keepers

Not me.
Don't feel alone

 

[Linda0818]

I used to, during my weight loss journey about 20 years ago. I used an online food logging site and everything I ate, including how much, went into my daily log. It was quite useful and it not only kept track of everything I ate, but the amount of fats (I was extremely fat-phobic back then) calories and nutrients.

It helped me a lot and kept me accountable. I lost 80 pounds using that log.

 

[boom]

I started today.

I am going to take the opportunity to use it to improve my handwriting as well.

 

[dcSaute]

"Dang. You all are legit note keepers"

okay, here's the deal . . . keeping notes on paper requires so-lottsa discipline and physical organization.

I started 'doing' computers on a PDP8 in 1967.
now-a-days I abhor paper 'anything' - it's all in a digital file - which I can find 100x faster that my DW paging through her "beloved recipes"

and then there's the add in of "information files" on anything from albacore to eggs to zucchini....

naming the files is - yes - really dang important.
I have a utility that can search for any character string(s) in any and all files names on my hard drive.
currently in the three terrabyte size range . . .
I have a second utility that can search for specific text words/strings in any and all files (or specified) on my hard drive. (it's slower than the name search . . . but . . . )

 

[dragnlaw]

dcSaute, here's my solution to keeping track. How about you call me everynight about 8ish? I will tell you what I had and you can enter it for me.

 

[taxlady]

"Dang. You all are legit note keepers"

okay, here's the deal . . . keeping notes on paper requires so-lottsa discipline and physical organization.

I started 'doing' computers on a PDP8 in 1967.
now-a-days I abhor paper 'anything' - it's all in a digital file - which I can find 100x faster that my DW paging through her "beloved recipes"

and then there's the add in of "information files" on anything from albacore to eggs to zucchini....

naming the files is - yes - really dang important.
I have a utility that can search for any character string(s) in any and all files names on my hard drive.
currently in the three terrabyte size range . . .
I have a second utility that can search for specific text words/strings in any and all files (or specified) on my hard drive. (it's slower than the name search . . . but . . . )

You get particularly careful about file names if you ever had your file directories blow up. By that I mean, one day I went to find a file on my Atari ST and the files were no longer neatly sorted into directories. The files were all there, but in one giant bucket. Now, when I name files, I start the name with something that will make it easier to sort the files if that sort of thing should happen again. I think the directory structure is probably a lot more robust now than it was back in 1985.