Found an easier way to keep a food journal

[kijip]

I suck at writing down my food. I just won't do it as I go, and I hate trying to find my food in the online systems. Since I am 6 days into eating no gluten, sugar or cows milk dairy so that I can pinpoint my headache and other health issues, I need to track my food intake and make a note of mood, headache symptoms or other observations. I have ended up just using my phone to snap a picture of whatever I am about to eat. At saving the pics on my computer with a little note takes very little time. This is way faster for me and more to the point, I am actually doing it, unlike the many food journals I have been told to make and then abandoned. I thought I would post this as a suggestion in case anyone else has needed to track food intake and stopped.

[smiles33]

That is a clever idea! I hated writing down what I was eating when I had gestational diabetes and would have loved to just show my nutritionist a bunch of photos. The only disadvantage is that other people watching you take photos of your food might think you're one of those FB people who posts photos of everything they eat! :)

[kijip]

The only disadvantage is that other people watching you take photos of your food might think you're one of those FB people who posts photos of everything they eat! :)

I guess that is a possible upside of eating only gluten-sugar-dairy free plus eliminating a fairly long list of other possible triggers. Not a lot of eating out so mostly I snap away in the privacy of my own home!

[daisysmom]

I think I read that idea somewhere once, but seeing that you are using it inspires me. I think gluton may be tied to some of my headaches and bloatedness. I went off it, and off of sugar largely, 5 months ago but fell off the bandwagon 8 weeks ago and have had a hard time getting back on it. Hope that you will inspire me!

[Melaine]

That's a great idea. Good for you for monitoring it so well, I hope you get to the root of the problem and start to feel better.

[infomama]

Interesting idea. I have played around with the idea of putting all my days food/calories in a basket. When the basket is empty I am done eating for the day. Anything that would be refrigerated would stay in there but the basket would have a slip of paper indicating it was "in the basket but in the frige". I use MFP right now but I may try my daily basket idea someday.

[MamaKath]

Oh, neat idea! I have a friend who was doing this via phone and fb. I had started using MFP, but it doesn't track moods. :/