Tedious task or necessary tool?

The answer to this question is the same as many other questions when it comes to nutrition.

It depends.

First and foremost, I think some form of food journaling can be a helpful tool for everyone at some point, but how far you take it will greatly depend on the person and where they are in their lifestyle, eating habits and fitness journey. From pen and paper, to a detailed excel spreadsheet, to an online calorie and macro counting app; all will help bring awareness to your eating habits and current food intake, but some take a little more time and patience than others.

As a nutrition coach, I try to identify clients as level 1, 2, or 3 eaters.

Level one eaters are clients with some basic knowledge of what healthy eating is, they typically want to lose some weight, look and feel better, and go about their daily lives.

Level two eaters are those who have quite a bit of knowledge about nutrition, maybe coaches or trainers themselves, are fit, and have pretty solid basic eating skills already set in place.

Level three eaters are clients that are already very lean, but want to get shredded. They are the 1% looking to get their body fat extremely low for a specific purpose, possibly step on a bodybuilding or figure stage who need to be very meticulous with their food intake, measuring and weighing everything.

Each level of eater will benefit differently from tracking their food intake.

Level one eaters will most likely benefit the most from writing down what they're eating just to gain awareness and get in tune with their body signals. No calorie counting, no fancy macronutrient calculations, just getting to know what foods are going into your body on a daily basis, and how those foods make you feel. These people can make big strides with very small adjustments, and will often feel overwhelmed with much more than that.

Level two eaters may need a little more to see further progress, but won't necessarily need to be exact with every gram of food. Focusing more on checking portion sizing and balancing proteins, carbs, and fats appropriately at each meal, eating slowly, and mostly whole foods as much as possible.

Level three eaters (again the 1%) will need to most likely get very specific with calorie and macronutrient counts to push their bodies to the next level, where they usually don't want to go. For example, this is taking a women's bodyfat level from 15% (very lean) down to 11% or 12%. Again these results are often short lived and done for a specific reason, but an app like MyFitnessPal (which is what I use) can be useful in these cases.

Bottom line, tracking your food can be helpful for some people. If you like doing it and you find it helps you practice your daily healthy eating habits that you can maintain long term then have at it! But, if you find it annoying, time consuming, unrealistic for your lifestyle, and/or focusing too much on the numbers, then don't worry about it and just focus on the things that do matter: the small habitual actions you do every single day, consistently over time that will keep you lean and healthy for the rest of your life.

As always, if you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear from you!

~Coach Lia

#foodjournal #lifestyle #nutrition