What is a nutritional diet log?

Nutritional diet diary is essentially a type of personalized health management tool used to record daily dietary intake, post-meal body reactions and changes in related health indicators. It was first born out of the dietary survey tool in the clinical nutrition department, and has now been extended from medical scenarios to health management scenarios for the general population.

I have been working as a community nutrition coach for the past three years. When I meet people who cannot explain their eating problems, my first suggestion is to keep a complete food diary for three days. It is much more reference than empty descriptions of "I eat very healthily" and "I eat very little". Last month, a little girl with recurrent urticaria came for consultation. She said that she had avoided all seafood and spicy food but still had recurring itches. After keeping a diary for 5 days, she discovered that she drank bottled oat milk bought in a convenience store before each attack. After going through a food intolerance screening, she found out that she was allergic to the non-dairy cream ingredient added in it. After stopping, the rash disappeared quickly.

However, there is a lot of controversy over food logs now. Many people think that weighing and counting calories every time is too energy-consuming, and it can easily put people in a shackles of diet. I have met a girl who has been on a diet before. In order to strictly control calories, she kept a diary for a year. Later, she occasionally ate an extra piece of cake and counted calories in the diary until she cried. Instead, she developed a tendency to overeat. In fact, there is no need to force yourself to keep a log in this situation.

In fact, there is no unified standard format for food logs now. It can be adjusted as needed, and there is no need to follow the template. If you have a diabetic in your family, just remember the type and portion of each staple food and the blood sugar level 2 hours after the meal. ； If you want to adjust your diet, you can even take a photo before each meal and scan it before going to bed to know whether you have eaten enough vegetables today or whether it is too oily. To put it bluntly, it is like taking a dynamic snapshot of your eating habits. Over a week or two, those small problems that you usually don't notice, such as always sneaking in sweets at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and eating enough at each meal but the protein is far behind, can all be clearly laid out. It is much more adaptable than blindly listening to general dietary advice on the Internet.