Keeping a food diary can be tedious, but it's worth the effort!

• You find out what and how much you eat

It's like a mirror being held up to you

If you want to go one step further: write down who you eat with, what else you do, how you felt before and after, etc.

• Self-knowledge leads to you making good decisions

Nothing leads to more self-knowledge than a personal diary. The same goes for a food diary.

• You achieve your goals more easily

Whether it's losing weight, gaining weight or athletic performance, nutrition plays a central role.

• Helps you work with your doctor or therapist

Especially if you have health problems, it is worth keeping a detailed food diary a week before your appointment with a therapist. This will enable a specialist to recognize where there may be deficits.

In my practice, I have seen time and time again that my clients' self-assessment of how healthy their diet is differs greatly from my own!

And if you, dear listener, are a therapist yourself, then I recommend that you ask your patients or clients how they eat and don't be fobbed off with a "good" or "I eat a little bit of everything".

• Shows where digestive complaints or intolerances can come from

If you often suffer from stomach pain, diarrhea, bloating or similar complaints, it can be very helpful to look for patterns, e.g. whenever you have eaten cream, wheat or raw vegetables, you feel unwell afterwards.

You may also not recognize anything because intolerance symptoms can occur up to 72 hours after ingesting an intolerable food, but nevertheless, dietary habits are a piece of the puzzle when looking for causes of digestive discomfort.

My tips for keeping a good and informative food diary

• Write down everything that goes into your mouth. This includes drinks, chewing gum or a piece of fruit that you have taken from the fruit bowl in the break room in passing. And also food supplements or medication that you take.
• It's best to write everything down as soon as you consume it. Otherwise you might forget something or not be sure exactly how many glasses of water you had.
• You don't need to weigh things, but be specific and write e.g. not 1 glass of water but 3 liters of still water, and not bread but 2 slices of spelt bread, not rice but 2 handfuls of white basmati rice
• Don't use the diary to judge yourself or to make yourself feel guilty. See it as a tool of knowledge that supports you on your path to health
• Be honest. You are doing it for you. Not for anyone else.
• And if you're one of those people who constantly have too little time, feel overwhelmed or stressed, then I recommend that you write down what you do all day for a week in addition to your food diary. What you spend your time on. It can be very eye-opening when you realize, for example, that instead of going to bed you scrolled on Instagram for 1 hour or went to the supermarket 3 times a week because you didn't plan your weekly shopping.

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