How to Track Your Nutrition

As a personal trainer, I often encourage clients to track their nutrition to better understand what they are eating, drinking, and supplementing with. Keeping a nutrition journal is helpful for learning about food preferences, what is going into your body, and what your current caloric, macro-, and micro-nutrient intake is (key for trying to lose, gain, and/or maintain weight). Tracking nutrition can also be helpful for identifying allergies and nutrient deficiencies and for planning meals.

In this article, I will offer steps for starting a nutrition journal. This process can be beneficial as a short term project (a couple of days or weeks), or for the long term (months/years). Nutrition tracking can be daunting, but there are multiple ways to do it, and I recommend choosing the one that causes the least stress. The goal to keep in mind is learning something new about yourself and using it as a means to reach other goals (i.e. weight-loss, improved digestion, muscle gain, etc.). You can do this!

Step 1: Choose a Modality for Tracking

To begin a nutrition journal, you need to select where you will keep your notes. Nutrition can be tracked digitally (on a phone or other electronic device) or manually (in a notebook, calendar, planner, etc.).

When choosing a tracking modality, it is good to consider what you are trying to learn, what is most convenient, and what you are most likely to commit to using. For example, if you never use your phone but you always carry a planner with you, keeping a nutrition journal in your planner may be the best option, as you can take a moment to write down what you eat and you know your planner will be handy. On the other hand, if you want to learn about how many calories you are consuming without having to do an internet search, downloading a tracking app on your phone may be the best option, as it will provide you with nutrition profiles for the foods you eat based on the databases it has available.

The following are different modalities to consider for starting a nutrition journal. You may even think of something that is not listed! I will also provide some pros and cons for each method of tracking.

Option 1: Pen and Paper

Writing down what you eat in a notebook, journal, or planner is a great option for learning about what you eat. Details can be added about the portion sizes, time of day when meals are consumed, what was good and not your favorite, and more. The drawback of this method is that additional research may need to be conducted to learn about the caloric, macronutrient, and micronutrient values of the foods, beverages, and supplements written down; however, if that information is not important to you, you don't mind looking it up, and/or pen and paper are simply your preference, this is a great way to start a nutrition journal.

Option 2: Phone/Computer/Electronic Device

This option for tracking nutrition is essentially the same as the last, but it is conducted on a phone, computer, or other electronic device. If a phone or computer are more available to you than a pen and paper, this may be a better way to track your nutrition. A digital journal can be easier to reference, you won't need to worry about spilled coffee on it or losing it (I mean I guess this could happen to your phone, but at least you can recover the data from digital storage), and additional research is a few clicks away. A digital journal can be kept in a notepad app, word document, or spreadsheet. As with the manual journal, details can be added (or left out) about nutritional values, portion sizes, when meals are eaten, etc.

Option 3: Photo Journal

If you are an aspiring food photographer, you hate writing things down, and/or you have good storage space on your phone, a photo journal may be a good option for tracking your nutrition. You can photograph your meals as you eat them, and create folders to store the pictures together. This method allows you to see what you ate, appreciate the visual aspects of what you consume, and can be very convenient. The drawbacks of this method are there can be less room for adding more details (although text boxes can be added to photos to include more information), inserting forgotten photos can be a challenge, and it can be tricky to use this type of journal for planning future meals (although using photos from the internet is an option here).

Option 4: Nutrition Tracking App

The final modality for tracking nutrition, and perhaps the most informative, is a nutrition app, such as Cronometer or My Fitness Pal (FitBit and other fitness watches typically have some sort of platform for tracking nutrition as well). I personally use and enjoy Cronometer because it provides information about calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients, I think it has a good database, and it is pretty easy to use. I encourage you to explore your options and use the app you like best or are most familiar with. A nutrition tracking app shares the pluses of a digital journal, and it removes the step of needing to look up nutritional information separately. The drawbacks of this method include the potential learning curves involved with using an unfamiliar app, less availability for customizing the data (i.e. not always room for adding when you ate and how you liked it), and sometimes the nutritional values are incorrect or there are multiple options to choose, which can make it tricky to find the one that matches what you ate or drank. That said, nutrition apps can be a great way to learn about what is in what you are eating, how much you eat, and what the nutrition profiles are for the meals you consume. Additionally, apps like this often generate charts and averages, which can be helpful visualization pieces for learning about trends in your diet.

Step 2: Decide What to Track

The information you will track influences which modality is best to use; however, most methods can accommodate any information you would like to keep track of. Data to track in a nutrition journal include:

-What you consumed (food, beverages, supplements, etc.)

-When you ate/drank (the date, what time you ate, what you call the meal at that time of day–breakfast, post-workout, snack, etc.)

-How you felt about what you ate/drank (if it was tasty, if it was satiating, how hungry you were when you ate it, if it caused digestion issues, if it supported your goals, etc.)

-The portion sizes of what you consumed

-The caloric values of what you consumed

-The macronutrient values of what you ate/drank (protein, carbohydrates (bonus: fiber), fats (bonus: saturated, unsaturated, and trans fats)

-The micronutrient values of what you consumed (vitamins and minerals, you can pay attention to particular ones or try to capture as many as possible)

-What you plan to eat/drink (nutrition journals can be used to meal plan as well as keep track of what you already consumed)

If you don't know where to start, I recommend starting with keeping track of everything that goes into your mouth and the date it went into your mouth on. From there, you can start tracking additional data points, such as calories and macros, and add details about when you ate and how it made you feel.

Step 3: Plan Out When You Will Track

As with the modality for tracking nutrition, the time(s) you track in relation to when you eat come with a variety of pros and cons. My advice is to pick the time(s) of day when you are most likely to track and which help you to be the most accurate. When you track can also be key to supporting your fitness and nutrition goals. For example, using a nutrition tracker to plan what you will eat during the day can help you resist temptation for foods that don't support your goals and choose foods that do.

Times for tracking nutrition include:

-Tracking right before or after meal times (this is best for keeping the data fresh)

-Tracking at the end of the day (can be most convenient and a good time to reflect on what was consumed and how it made you feel; however, this may lead to a few memory lapses)

-At the beginning of the day or the night before (this can be helpful for making a plan; however, sometimes what is consumed is different than what is planned, and it is important to account for that)

-At the end of the week (this provides a good summary, but it will only be as good as your memory)

-At the beginning of the week (great for making a plan, but as with tracking the day before, the best laid plans can change)

Deciding in advance when you will track can help you adhere and commit to tracking your nutrition, but for some people, it's easier to just do it when you remember. The levels of adherence, accuracy, and commitment needed depend on your goals for tracking and how closely you need to pay attention in order to support your other goals.

Step 4: Reflect and Revise

Taking time to reflect on what you tracked daily, weekly, and/or monthly can help you learn from your data, revise your method if necessary, and make any changes to your diet that you need to. This step is what makes nutrition tracking meaningful rather than just something to do. Check out the charts generated from your apps, read the notes you wrote about what you enjoyed and what upset your stomach, learn from the times you ate or drank something that didn't support your goals, and keep up the good work or try something new.

That's a Wrap (A Tasty One at That)!

Whether you'd like to keep track of your lunch wrap, how many calories or grams of protein it contains, and/or how good it made you feel to eat it, you now have some ideas to start a nutrition journal. If it gets stressful, take a break and come back to it. If it's helpful and you love it, enjoy the process and keep learning. If it's an exercise and a chore, let it help you reach your goals and appreciate the ups and downs. Best wishes to you on your health journey, and happy tracking and snacking. 😋