When I’m on track on my diet, I believe it is because I am keeping a daily food diary. As soon as I skip writing down the food I eat, the daily calorie count goes up, and within days, like during the holidays, I’m totally off track.
Here are some tips for keeping a daily food diary with some recommendations for online food diary sites.
If you’re new to my site, I’ve put together some helpful info for keeping track of calories and staying on a lower calorie diet, including:
- Calculating how many calories to eat per day
-
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus with recipes and calories counts
Here’s what my own food diary looks like.
Download a blank printable version of this food diary sample page (PDF file - right click the PDF link and choose "Save Target As" on the PC, and "Save Link As" on a Mac. Download the free PDF reader.)
| Date: | Calories |
| Breakfast: | |
| 1 cup General Mills Cheerios | 100 |
| 1 banana | 93 |
| 8 oz skim milk | 90 |
| Total: | 283 |
| Lunch: | |
| South Beach Diet frozen Deluxe pizza | 340 |
| 1/2 c. Kozy Shack European style Rice Pudding | 130 |
| Ice tea (no sugar) | 0 |
| Total: | 470 |
| Supper: | |
| 2 eggs scrambled | 156 |
| 1/2 tsp. olive oil (for pan) | 20 |
| 1 slice Natural Oven bread, toasted | 90 |
| 1/2 Tbsp. cream cheese for toast | 25 |
| 8 oz skim milk | 90 |
| 1 nectarine | 67 |
| 2 slices Hormel Canadian bacon | 70 |
| 1/2 c. vanilla ice cream | 150 |
| Cookie | 100 |
| Total: | 768 |
| Notes and recipes: | |
| Total calories for day: |
1521 |
