Tuesday 13 March 2012

Food Diary

I am not sure how many people keep an actual food diary or log. I have tried variations of this in the past with little to no success. For awhile I was roughly counting calories, just keeping track in my head and being conscious of what I was putting in my mouth throughout the day. That actually worked for me for a short while. But there is so much more to tracking what you eat than just calories. Lately, I have really been focusing on the nutrients in my food and the variety of what I eat. However, I can't be bothered to write in a little journal, book, excel file, whatever, what I eat and how much and blah blah blah.

Somewhat organically, I managed to combine a new and fun hobby with a practical tool such as a food diary. I have recently joined the wonderful world of Pinterest, and while joyously pinning random things that I enjoy, I noticed that food and recipes was one of the most popular categories. It started with me looking up some new recipes for one of my weekend cooking days, and I pinned the photos of each dish and then went ahead and made them. The next time I was trying to think of what to pin, I looked up photos similar to the dinner I had just created that night, when suddenly I thought that I should pin my daily dinner, or something I ate that day, or even just craved. All of a sudden, I have a visual track of what I have been eating lately. While my pins aren't always exact replicas of my meals, making it hard to make caloric comparisons, generalizations can be made. I can see how frequently I consume carbs, or what veggies I get more of than others.

I thought it was pretty clever, and I love looking at the photos. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.. mmmm

If you want to check out What's Cooking click the link!