Nutritional Diet Log

Ordinary people don’t need to follow the trend and buy hundreds of compound supplements, copy Internet celebrity fat-reducing meal recipes, and keep a down-to-earth nutrition and diet diary for 3 months. The long-term improvement effect on metabolism, skin, and daily energy is more reliable than eating 3 boxes of whitening pills or getting 2 annual fitness passes.

A young girl who just graduated came to me last week and said that she followed the trend and ate "fat-reducing meals" for half a month, including boiled vegetables and oats, but her aunt postponed her meal for 10 days. I asked her to list what she had eaten before, and found out that what she bought was sweet fruit oatmeal with non-dairy cream, and boiled vegetables were mixed with three tablespoons of Thousand Island dressing each time. Calculated, the calories were higher than normal home-cooked meals. If she had kept a diary for a week earlier, she would not have stepped into this pitfall. I have been doing nutritional consulting for almost 6 years, and have tracked the diets of more than 30 users. As long as those who can keep a diary for two months, even if they do not deliberately diet, they will most likely be able to stabilize their weight within a reasonable range, and minor problems such as constipation, afternoon drowsiness, and seasonal acne will be cured by more than half.

Nowadays, there are quite different opinions in different circles about how to keep a food diary. Old-school clinical nutrition teachers will ask you to count down to the gram, even how many peanuts you have eaten, to facilitate the calculation of macronutrient ratios; bloggers on ketogenic and low-carb diets will ask you to focus on carbohydrate intake, and you can relax everything else; those on intuitive eating even object to you recording any calorie numbers, saying that it will aggravate eating anxiety. You only need to remember whether you have acid reflux after eating, whether you will be hungry quickly, and whether your mood is stable.

I have tried all three methods myself. To be honest, each has its own applicable scenarios. There is really no need to stick to one method and say "is the right one." If you have just been diagnosed with a basic disease such as diabetes or gout, then you are definitely right to record it accurately according to clinical requirements, so that the doctor can adjust your diet plan; if you just want to lose some body fat and don’t have any basic problems, then just focus on recording the intake of carbohydrates and oils. After all, most people gain weight not because they eat too much meat, but because they eat too much invisible sugar and oil. If you have experienced dieting or vomiting before, then really don’t touch calorie calculations. Pay more attention to the body’s feelings than anything else. It’s easier to have psychological problems if you stick to numbers.

Many people can’t keep a diary because they do it too grandly at the beginning. They buy a gold-gilded ledger, use a food scale to weigh every meal, and take beautifully retouched pictures. They give up after not persisting for three days. It’s really unnecessary. Now I just type two lines on my phone’s memo. When I caught the subway in the morning and bought a vegetable bag, I wrote: “7:45, 1 vegetable bag. I drank half a cup of hot soy milk. I felt hungry at 9:40. I’ll add more eggs next time.” When a friend goes out to have a barbecue, he takes an original picture and saves it. Before going to bed, he adds: "I had barbecue at 8 o'clock last night and drank two bottles of cold beer. My mouth tastes bitter when I wake up this morning. I will drink less ice next time." It only takes 5 minutes before and after, and it doesn't take any time at all.

Don’t underestimate these few lines. If you look back after a month, you will find many small problems that you didn’t notice before. There was a user who was a planner who looked through his diary and found that he would have diarrhea as soon as he drank iced Americano. He thought it was because he was born with a weak stomach, but later he changed to hot food and everything was fine. There was also a programmer who found that he had milk tea with chiffon cake in the afternoon and would suffer from insomnia until 2 o'clock at night. He thought it was because of overtime, but later he changed his afternoon tea to 10 original almonds, and his sleep quality improved by more than half. If you don’t write down these small details hidden in your daily life, you may never discover them in your lifetime.

Oh, by the way, if you are going to start memorizing now, don’t be too demanding on yourself on the first day, even if you only write one sentence. After all, nutrition has never been a profound knowledge. Every bite you eat will give you feedback from your body. To put it bluntly, journaling is to help you collect these scattered feedbacks and slowly find the eating rhythm that suits you best. It is much more reliable than copying other people's recipes.