Keeping a food diary is an effective way to keep track of the number of calories that you eat every day. Whether you are trying to lose weight or simply maintain a healthier diet, a food diary can help you out.
Studies have demonstrated that tracking what you eat in a food diary is associated with losing more weight in the long term. One study showed that food diarists lost twice the amount of those who didn’t track.
Instead of a written diary, you can use a mobile app like HealthifyMe to log your meal intake. You won’t have to look up the number of calories in your meals — our Indian food calories database will tally it for you.
Here are three reasons why a food diary works:
It shows you what you’re eating You may think that you know exactly what you eat every day. But the truth is that most people eat more than three meals and most extra calories come from this sort of snacking. If you are trying to lose weight, keeping track of these calories is what’s most important. And a mobile app like Healthifyme will even remind you if you’ve forgotten to log an entry.
By seeing exactly what you eat daily, you can begin to cut certain types of food out of your diet.
It helps you plan meals At first, use your food diary to keep track of the meals that you eat. But over time, you can actually use your food diary to plan out basic meals and snacks in order to create a more balanced diet.
Whether you’re not getting enough vegetables into your diet or you’re skipping meals, your food diary serves as a record of everything that you do–and do not–eat. Knowing that you are deficient in certain food groups can be helpful and can help you plan out your diet a little better than ever before.
It will keep you on track Over time, your food diary will actually make you want to eat healthier. Every time you write down a food that has a lot of calories in it, you’ll want to avoid doing it in the future. Use the diary as a way to make adjustments throughout the day and to gauge how much exercise you need to hit a certain calorie count. It can actually help you to look at food in a whole new way.
