episode 223: Is food tracking helping or hurting you?
If you’re listening, you've probably tracked your food at some point—calories, macros, points. Maybe obsessively. Maybe for a goal. Maybe because it helped you feel in control.
But here’s the truth: tracking and journaling are not the same thing, and knowing the difference can change everything about how you relate to food.
In this episode, I’m breaking down:
When and why tracking is helpful
The five key components of food journaling that reveal what numbers never can
How journaling uncovers the real reasons behind overeating, late-night snacking, and feeling out of control
My personal take on when to track, when to journal, and how to do either in a way that’s actually useful (not soul-sucking)
If you’ve been stuck relying on an app to tell you when and how much to eat—or you’re scared to stop tracking because it feels like free falling—this one’s for you.
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223
[00:00:00] Hey friends, here we are. Back again with another episode of The Diet Diaries. Um, today I wanna talk about something that is, uh, something, it's something that I talk about with clients often, and I probably have done an episode about it. We're on episode, I think 223. I can't remember the topic of every episode, but like I always say, once is never, and if you listen to it, if I did it a year ago or two years ago, or three years ago.
I think it's okay to repeat, uh, 'cause we need to hear things many times before they sink in. So what I wanted to talk about today was food tracking versus food journaling because they are not the same. And when we think about food tracking, we have a very, we instantly know what that means, right? That means tracking calories and or macros or points in an app.
Yeah, maybe if you're old school by hand. I had found, I think I've shared, it's been a long time. [00:01:00] Pictures of little notebooks that I found when my parents were moving a couple years ago, um, where I was writing down what I was eating and my estimated number of calories for the day by hand. And certainly, um, anyone who is, I would say my age, right?
So mid forties or older. Um, you know, so if you grew up in the eighties or nineties, then you probably did that. Um. And if you're older then you definitely did that. Um, so food tracking is something, if you're listening to this podcast, I would bet money that you have done at one point or another. And inherently food tracking itself is not a problem.
What becomes a problem is the reliance, the dependency, and the obsession that we start to develop in relationship to that food tracking, right? Food tracking in and of itself in some ways is no different than tracking a budget or tracking steps or, uh, like tracking your spending, tracking your income. Um.
Or collecting any type of data, but it's what we [00:02:00] do with that tracking that becomes the problem. Um, how are we using that information? And in most cases we end up, that information can sometimes be helpful for a period of time, but very often becomes a form of obsession and a tool that creates a lot of distrust between ourselves and food and also exercise.
Because we start to rely more on what the numbers are telling us and what we are noticing or feeling in our own body, and that it becomes very, very problematic. And so it doesn't mean that there's no place for food tracking. Um, there are certain, I I have had clients who have tracked food while we have worked together, but we have done it with a very, very specific, um, goal or objective in mind.
Something specifically we're trying to learn. And it's done for a fixed amount of time. Um, I have spent. I mean years tracking food. Um, certainly when you add it all up, years of my life, but even, um, kind of sequentially, was that the right word? [00:03:00] Um, I have tracked food for one year, two years at a time. Um, taking little breaks here and there, but not many.
Um, and. If you have no sense of what's going into your body, you have no sense of how much protein you're eating, or you have no idea how many calories you're eating in a day. Sometimes it can be helpful, right, because. Again, we have such a really challenging relationship. Relationship. Even when I bring about, talk about calories, right?
Calories are a unit of energy, right? They're not good, they're not bad. This is science. They're a unit of energy. And just like you need to know how much money you're bringing into your house through your job, sometimes you need to know how much energy you're putting into your body through food. Um, and that it can be a very helpful and useful piece of information for some people.
Um. But then it can also turn into something that is not helpful and not useful because we start to do something with it that is not really beneficial. We start to act on it in a way that's not aligned in alignment with our values, and we start to lose sight of why we are doing [00:04:00] this and what we're trying to get out of it.
And so this is where food journaling comes into play, right? Because food tracking is all, all quantitative data driven, right? It's all numbers, calories, macros points are things that are measured in numbers. And so it leaves out a lot of information, right? No different than if you get like, let's say an 82 on a test, right?
Which would be considered like, you know, above average, kind of like maybe an okay grade. Well, there's so much context that's left out. If you just say, well, I got an 82. Well, did you study or did you not study? How well did you know the material? How well did you prepare? How well did you sleep the night before?
How stressed out were you when you took the test? What time of day did you take the test? There's so many factors that go along with that 82, that that grade is just one piece of information, right, and saying, well, I ate. 1800 calories today, or I had 60 grams of protein or 120 grams of protein, whatever it is, that's one piece of information that tells only a small piece of the story of what is going on, [00:05:00] and there becomes very limited information that we can gather from that.
Or I should say information that doesn't very then very easily get taken out of context. Um, and so food journaling. Rounds out that picture and it's not something, it's something you can do in addition to food tracking. It is also something you can do entirely separate. You can journal without tracking and you can track without journaling.
Tracking will be. Incomplete at best. Um, and I think out of context at best, whereas the journaling is going to give you a much more comprehensive picture of what is actually going on. Because when we journal, we're trying to capture a variety of things that is more what I'll call qualitative data, the quality of things.
Um, a lot more of the, the, the, um, the context, the subjectivity, the experience, the lived experience, not just the numbers. And so what I mean by that, there's. So I think about four to five kind of key things that we, that we incorporate when we journal. And you don't have to incorporate all of these, right?
This is kind of, this would be [00:06:00] all encompassing, but you can get, uh, kind of choosy and selective about what you want to journal. I. And that can ebb and flow over time, right? So I'm gonna run through them. Um, the first thing is, you know, obviously what you ate. And I'll also talk about how to do this right?
Because there's many ways to journal food. You can do it by hand in a notebook. You could do it in a Google Doc, you could do it in the notes app of your phone. There are also many apps out there that now offer qualitative journaling. And I will tell you that some of the quant apps like MyFitnessPal or um, chronometer do offer like a notes section.
It's a little hard to find. Um, but there are opportunities if you want to add onto it, because what I will say is this, if you are someone who has tracked food or is tracking food, for most people, cold Turkey, stopping does not really work because we are so reliant on those numbers and using that to tell us what we can and can't eat that if we just suddenly strip that away.
It is like free, it feels like free falling through [00:07:00] space a little bit. It, it can be unmooring, so I don't necessarily recommend that. I'm not saying you can't do it, but a lot of times you want to start to layer on some other pieces of journaling so you can start to gather some information and start to kind of recalibrate and, and learn how to pay attention to different things when you're eating, not just how many calories you ate or how much protein you had.
And then as you start to. Get used to that and you start to know what you're paying attention to and what you're noticing in your body, then you can start to slowly dial back on the tracking piece. Um, so just wanted to kind of throw that out there as a sidebar. Uh. It's a sidebar, but it's also very important.
Um, so right back to in terms of the journaling, right? I have a lot of clients who will do it in the notes app of their phone, and then sometimes we share that note so that I can see it and it's not like me checking up on, but it's can be just a helpful way to have conversations. Um, if you are, you know, obviously just on your own, you need to share it with anybody, but because we have our phones on us, sometimes doing it in your phone.
Is really helpful, and I started talking about that. There are apps in which you can do this, if that's helpful, great. [00:08:00] Whatever is gonna be kind of most engaging for you and whatever you are likely to do, most consistently is most important. Um, and again, I, this is not something that you will do forever.
Um, in coaching, we work on this for a set period of time. When we decide to journal food, we decide how long we're going to do it for. And very often it's a couple of weeks. And then we reassess after those couple of weeks. 'cause we're talking about what have I learned from this? What am I taking away from it?
From the experience of journaling itself, but also the specifics about what I've noticed and then what am I doing with that information? How am I taking action on that and putting that into practice, you know, with whatever I'm working on. And then we decide is it useful and helpful to keep journaling, yes or no?
And we make that decision. It's not something you just do forever and ever on end. No one wants to do that. Um. Eating. You know, I made the analogy to money earlier. And yes, there are some helpful overlaps there, but there's also different things, whereas most people in some way need to have some type of a budget or have a really good sense of what's coming and what's going out.
Um, with food, the goal is [00:09:00] food is different than money, and that our bodies are designed instinctually to have a good sense of what we need coming in and what we need going out. And by going out I, I just mean more of like. I'm gonna rephrase that and to, you know, it's not even about going out. It's really just what's coming in.
Um, and because we are, we have the innate ability to notice those sensations around hunger and fullness, around energy, around fatigue, around cravings, around irritability, around our moods, and the role that food plays in all of that. Um, right. So those, those kind of, uh, different biomarkers. Give us a lot of information about how, what's happening with food, um, and if what and how, what, why, and how we are eating is working for us or not.
So in terms of what you could potentially journal, right? What you eat, that's what I started talking about. And there's ways to do that. You can write it down, you can take pictures, which can be really [00:10:00] helpful. Um, but obviously what you ate, what time you ate this, I would say, I gotta be honest. It gives so much information because if you are eating, if you eat, let's say you eat at eight o'clock in the morning and then you eat again at nine or at 10, or you don't eat until 5:00 PM there's so much helpful information in that the frequency with which we eat is a very important piece of data that tells us a lot about how what we are eating is working or not working for us.
So tracking the time that you ate and making a note of that. Very helpful. So we've got what we've got. When, where did you sit at a table? Were you in your car? Were you at your desk? Were you standing in front of the pantry? That gives us information, right? The experience of, um, shoving snacks in your mouth in front of the pantry is very different than sitting down at a table is very different than eating at your desk is very different than going off to dinner with your family, right?
And the context of those environments and situations plays a role. And what we're eating and why we're eating, and often how much [00:11:00] we are eating, right? So it's another useful piece of information. So we've got what we've got when we've got where. And then we've got why. And sometimes why can be the trickiest, right?
And when I say why, I mean are you eating 'cause you were hungry? Are you eating 'cause you were bored? Are you eating because you had to because it was time to, because someone suggested that you eat or 'cause someone else was eating, right? The reason why, and sometimes we don't always know, um, especially between hunger and boredom or hunger and cravings, right?
That can start to become really nuanced. But that is kind of the crux of this whole thing. If you're not paying attention to why you're eating, you're never gonna know why you're eating, right? And if you're only tracking macros or calories or points you don't know, sometimes you will eat. You'll like force yourself to eat protein to hit your goals, right?
Or let's say you have on Weight Watchers, or even with macros, oh, I have three points left over. Great. I'm gonna go have like a dessert. Well, what if you don't really want that dessert? You're just eating it. 'cause you can right these. These [00:12:00] nuanced, but very, very important. Um, awarenesses, for lack of a better term, are what you start to learn through journaling.
It's like, it's kind of like a, you don't know what you don't know thing until you start journaling, you don't even realize what you're not paying attention to. And I've had so many clients have massive breakthroughs because of this, because of journaling. 'cause you start to pay attention to things. That you never paid attention to before, that you didn't even know were happening, but that are playing a huge role in why you are feeling so shitty around food and so shitty in your body.
Um, so we've got what we've got when we've got where we've got why, and then there's, there's how, which kind of like fits in a little bit to the other. So that's not always something we do. But, um, how could be like if you. Kind of like had to binge and you ate in secret, right? Or if you were like really in a rush, um, or that, that would be a little bit of the how.
But a lot of times that gets [00:13:00] captured with the why or the where. Um, so I don't kind of really. Think about that as much. Um, another piece of the how could be like how you, how you were feeling. Like how hungry were you, how full were you? Um, again, that kind of overlaps with the why. So some of this is like you thinking about what language makes the most sense to you and what is gonna be helpful for you as you do this.
Um, but we've kind of mapped it out here, right? You've got your categories of what you're journaling. We've got some options for where to do it. We've got some timeframes for how long to do this from, and then really it's about what am I gonna do with this information? You're not doing it just for the sake of doing it.
And if you don't know why you're doing it and you don't have an objective, then don't do it because it's not gonna be helpful. Um, you know, so. Really having clarity and understanding as to why you're doing this, right? Maybe you are snacking a lot late at night, right? Maybe you are consistently overeating at meals.
Maybe you feel out of control when you go out to eat. Maybe anytime there's sweets in the house, you feel like all you do all day [00:14:00] is think about those sweets, right? So if, if there's a specific, or even multiple specific challenges or feelings or stuff that is going on that you do not feel good about.
You are journaling to help uncover why that may be happening now, right? As you journal you, certain things may or may not be obvious to you, right? Like when I'm coaching people and I'm looking at their journals or they're, they're walking me through what they've noticed, right? 'cause that's what we always do first, right?
I'm not, the most important thing is someone reflecting back on their own journal and what insights did they get? Right? And there's. I would say 99% of the time, there are always insights. And then I will also, um, kind of look and see if anything pops out to me. But being able to kind of connect the own dots on this and see some of your own patterns is really, really important.
Um, so that's what you're looking for, right? Is looking for patterns, looking for, um. You know, do you notice certain things happening on certain days or every day or is it once in a while? And is it [00:15:00] impacted by stress or by work or by school or by schedules? Right. There's a lot of variables, and I don't say all this to make it feel overwhelming.
I say this so that when you journal and you look back at it. You're, you're looking for different patterns. You're looking for maybe some cause and effect. Um, you're looking to see, well, if, if I know what my big problem is, right? You've identified that or what, what, what my three big challenges are. I'm trying to connect, collect some data.
Really it's doing detective work on yourself, and I'm trying to understand why is this thing happening, right? Why am I snacking so much at night? And I say, look at what I'm eating over the course of the day. Am I missing nutrition? Am I not eating foods that I like? Am I rushing through dinner? Right?
There's so many different variables that could impact that, but you're looking for clues. You're looking for information and see what you find. Um, and that's really what this is about. And gathering information on yourself is so [00:16:00] helpful and so important, and. Pretty much every client that I work with does this at some point.
We don't always do it to start, um, but we very often do because otherwise, sometimes we're just throwing shit up against the wall and hoping that it sticks. Um, we have to know where you are at and what you are doing. You need to know where you are at and what you are doing. This is why like following a meal plan or random diet doesn't work because it's not taking into consideration anything that you're currently doing and what your actual challenges are.
Right. It's just, it's trying to quote, fix something, but it might not be fixing the thing that's actually the issue for you, right? It's one of the reasons why a diet doesn't work. You need to know what's going on with you and where kind of the, the breakdown or the, the kind of the challenge point is for you.
So that you can address that specifically in a way that meets your needs and your lifestyle. And food journaling is a huge way and very useful way to identify where that is happening, right? Where's kind of the, the breakdown, for lack of a [00:17:00] better term, may maybe not the best language, but you get my point, so that you can then address that need specifically and directly and effectively.
Um, so that's really what I wanted to talk about. If you've got questions, reach out. Um, and yeah, that's what I got for you today. Thank you for listening. As always, I appreciate your time, your energy, and your attention. And I'll be back of course, next week.