Keeping a Food Diary

An important part of maintaining a healthy weight is to keep a close eye on what you are eating and drinking. This can be achieved by keeping a food diary. This involves making a record of everything you eat and drink. You can do this for as many days as you wish, but a 7-day food diary will provide you with a really good indication of what you typically eat on a weekly basis. If you cannot carry out a 7-day record than a 3-day diary is the next best thing and will provide you with a good representation of your daily diet.

Below is a typical food diary containing 4 columns – date, description, amount and notes. You can print this page off and photocopy as required. Use this as the basis of your diary.

Instructions:

• Always record the date and the time of the meal eg: Monday / breakfast
• Write a detailed description of the food that was eaten (eg: 2 slices of bread, medium sliced, wholemeal with a thin scraping of vegetable margarine and jam)
• Don’t forgot to record your drink intake in the same way (eg: small glass of orange juice (unsweetened), cup of tea with skimmed milk and no sugar)
• At the end of each day you can add up the number of portions of each food group you have consumed (eg: 5 portions of carbohydrate based foods, 6 portions of protein based foods etc)
• Compare this with the recommendations from the Balance of Good Health food plate model.