Food Intake / Food Log

Do any of you use/keep a food log?  Do you write down everything you eat?  I was told this was a good idea, so I started my food log this week.   So far, I can tell I’m not doing something right. How do I know if I’m eating too much or too little?  Is it possible to eat too much fruit? 

5/28/09 Lisa’s Food Log

8:30 am - B’fast:
2 slices of turkey breast
2 pieces of mild cheddar cheese
8 natural almonds
2 strawberries

11:35am - Lunch:
3 slices of turkey breast
3 pieces of mild cheddar cheese
12 almonds
½ sm. Banana
3 blackberries
3 rasberries

2:00pm - Snack:
1 slice turkey
1slice cheese
3 strawberries
5 blackberries
5 rasberries

6pm or so - Dinner:  -- I’ve planned to have the following --
1 trout fillet (steamed)
5-8 asparagus
½ cucumber w/ lemon
1 piece of fruit


Seems like alot of food....

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Lisa

Lisa

I do keep a type of journal.  At the RYD Galveston event Austin Daivs said to keep a spiral notebook as a journal.  On the left hand side write each morning these two sentences.
1. Are my actions consistent with my goals?
2. If i did today 365 days where would I be in a year?

On the right hand side write every thing you eat.  I also list all the vitamins and supplements I take and cross them off as I take them.

If you need help with portions and calories I would look into fitday.com.  It is free and you can keep a diary of all you eat.  The site gives you a nutritional breakdown of common foods and you can click customize foods and enter values right from the labels of your foods.  It will also track your exercise.  You can see your fat, carb, protein, breakdown in a pie chart or graph.  It will even print out reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  It is a good site if you have time to sit at the computer evertime you put something in your mouth.  OR you could keep a list and at the end of the day enter everything in the computer.
 
Hope this helps.

Ya, I was at the RYD conference and Austin Davis is the reason why I started my food log this week.  Yep, got my very own spiral notebook.  -- I even wrote down my goals.

Anyhow...thanks for the great tip.  I registered for my free account on fitday.com.  Looks like this might work for me.

Thanks a bunch,
Lisa

If you log all of this into fitday.com, it will give you a total on grams of fat, carbs and protein as well as total calories.

I registered on fitday.com.  Love it!

Thank you,
Lisa

I would suggest using either Fitday.com or Sparkpeople.com.  They both have easy to use sites that will tell you exactly what you're getting in terms of protein, calories, carbs, fats, etc.  Since you don't list quantity (ie, how much is a slice of turkey or cheese...one oz or 3?) it's hard for us to tell you.

Also try My Fitness Pal, www.myfitnesspal.com . It is my favorite of all those mentioned and also keeps track of everything you can imagine. I print out the whole month for my NUT for our monthly meeting.