Write It Down! Download-able Food Journal

I'm getting ready to add the journaling element into my daily life again. It really does help. I'm going to try really hard not to focus on it too much, but to let it just become an easy habit...something I can always do.

So I dusted off my old binder that I had last year, and pulled out my "stuff."

In my "stuff," I have a food journal I created in order to keep track of what I ate, when I ate, how many calories I ate, and why I ate.

(The Why I Ate was a recommendation from Jillian Michaels, I believe in one of the Biggest Loser books, to help us to recognize what triggers us to eat so that we can watch out for those triggers that should not lead to eating, and do something else instead. For example, if my "why" is that I'm bored, I need to dive into a project instead of into a bag of caramels. Not that I would ever do that).

Here's a sample of a page I filled in last year. (Although the one in my binder is filled in by hand, not typed). No, it's not a perfect eating day. It is what it is, and I say it's still pretty darn good! I need to get back to eating more like this, quite frankly.

Food Journal

Date:          1/22/12/      Water Intake:       100 oz.                                                         Weight: 194.3

Meal/Time of Day	Food Item	Food Group	Calories	Total Calories	Why I Ate
Breakfast	½ cup honey nut cheerios	grain	110		hungry
	Banana	Fruit	100	110
Lunch	PB&J (bits and pieces		90		Lunch time
	Zucchini, onions, squash	vegetable	130	220
Snack	Wasa crackers & laughing cow	Grain, protein/dairy	170
Dinner	Salad	Vegetable	640		Dinner Time
	w/olives & egg	Healthy fat, protein
Total So Far				1240
8:45	Popcorn	Grain	100
	Yogurt	Protein/Dairy	100

Total Calories In:       1440      

                                                                       Total Calories Out: I don't know, bodybugg was busted

That's the general idea.

As far as calories out, most people do not have a way to track how many calories they burned for the entire day (like, when you're cooking or sitting or sleeping--you get the idea). So for total calories out, you can just use the activity calculator tab at the top of this page, and track how many calories you burned during your actual exercise. 

Unfortunately, since I created my food journal, my computer crashed. So this morning I created it all over again, and I thought I'd share it with all of you. It is available for download, or you can check it out and create one of your own that suits your style better.

Here's how the blank one looks:

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Food Journal

Date: __________ Water Intake:_______________________                  Weight:________________

Meal/Time of Day	Food Item	Food Group	Calories	Total Calories	Why I Ate

Here is an actual image of the page:

So if you'd like to print these, just click on the links below and they will take you to the download option. The actual documents are a bit more polished--the above are just copied and pasted from word.  If you want to create your own, make a table in a word document and fill in the categories you'd like to track. Good luck!

Download the Filled In Sample
Download the Blank Document

Happy Journaling!