5 Reasons to Keep a Food Record

Tracking what you eat and keeping a food record can be one of the most effective ways to assess your eating style and tune into your body to ultimately choose foods that fuel you to be your best. With the right food tracking technology, you can better accelerate your success in achieving your health and wellbeing goals.

Healthy Dining and Cronometer have partnered to provide you with the most advanced and accurate food tracking technology, called TRACK. This TRACK feature on MyMenu Concierge gives you an in-depth look at not just your macros – but your micronutrient intake, too. We would only want to provide the most accurate calorie calculator that’s paired with an accurate macro and micronutrient calculator as well.

Why Should You Track Your Food?

There are many life-changing benefits to tracking what you eat. Even keeping a food record for just a few days can give you deep insights into your nutritional health and wellbeing to ultimately help you to EAT to be your BEST. Below are just a few of our favorite reasons of why we track our food:

1. Identify: Keeping an online food record can help identify your current eating habits.

2. Assess: Tracking can help examine which areas need tweaking.

3. Reach Goals: Food records can help you reach your food and exercise goals.

4. Stay on Track: Logging your food intake can help you stay on track.

5. Tune In to Your Body: It helps identify digestive and other food intolerances.

Now let’s dive into each of these reasons for why using a food (and exercise!) tracker is beneficial.

1. IDENTIFY: Keeping an Online Food Record Can Help Identify Your Current Eating Habits

Spending a few days tracking can help determine your baseline. It can help you answer questions like:

• Are you getting enough, or too many calories, carbs and healthy fats?

• Does the food protein calculator show that you are consuming enough protein to fit your active lifestyle?

• What areas need some tweaking? Are there certain areas you need to focus on more?

• Are you getting enough of the valuable micronutrients - Vitamin D, B12, iron, and other important nutrients in your day?

Understanding where you are currently is the starting point to determine how to get where you're going.

2. ASSESS: Tracking Can Help Assess What Areas Need Tweaking

Once you've established your baseline in your food record with TRACK, you can identify which foods are currently supporting your goals and which food choices are deterring you from reaching your goals – and then adjust accordingly. Maybe you incorrectly assumed you were getting enough protein? Or perhaps that morning breakfast that you've eaten every day for the past five years isn't as balanced as you thought?

But the goal of tracking is not just to point out what you are doing wrong – it is also about reinforcing the great food choices that you are making. Being aware of the foods supporting your health and fitness goals will help you to make better informed decisions moving forward.

3. REACH GOALS: Food Records Can Help You Reach Your Food and Exercise Goals

Making high nutrient choices – and making them consistently – is the magic recipe for success. Let's take a look at how TRACK helps this process!

• Consistency: We all know that consistency is key when it comes to training or showing up for your workouts. The same holds true for consistently following an eating plan that aligns with your goals. Being dedicated to your workouts as well as to how you fuel your body will bring you closer and closer to your goals.

• More Informed Decisions: TRACKing allows you to shine a light on which foods are supporting or hindering your progress. TRACKing what you eat as you eat it, helps make you aware of how your choices fit into the big picture of your goals so you can make more informed decisions about how you fuel your body.

By identifying and adding more foods that contribute higher quality macro and micronutrient value you can optimize your health and accelerate your fitness and performance goals.

Also, because TRACKing requires us to measure foods, at least at first, we get a better sense of what a portion or serving size looks like, and how we might be underestimating or overestimating our intake.

TRACK also helps us determine how our needs change on a daily basis and how to adjust our intake accordingly. By inputting your daily activity – whether a leisurely morning walk or a heavy training session – you will see how your caloric, macro and micronutrient needs update to accommodate for fuel and recovery.

4. STAY ON TRACK: Logging Your Food Can Help You Stay On Track

Set a goal to use TRACK – either every day or at least for one week to start. We know you will receive unparalleled, life-enhancing benefits by TRACKing.

Making a daily habit out of TRACKing your food will not only help you meet your goals, but it will keep you on focused as you continue to maintain and accelerate your goals and performance.

Think of TRACK as a coach, or even a supportive friend, holding you accountable each day and guiding you to make the right choices.

While TRACKing might take some practice and encouragement at first, soon it will be a part of your daily routine – and you won't want to miss the data and personal insights TRACK provides.

5. TUNE IN TO YOUR BODY: It Helps Identify Digestive and Other Food Intolerances

Keeping a daily food log will also allow you to connect the dots between digestive issues or low energy levels and potentially triggering foods or intolerances.

As the saying goes, "you are what you eat!" If something isn't sitting right with you, this will allow you to identify some patterns so that you can eliminate the potential culprits. This is especially helpful if you meet with a Registered Dietitian or other health professional to diagnose what's causing your unwanted symptoms. They can examine what you’ve tracked and you'll already be one step ahead to get answers.

While TRACKing your food might seem daunting at first, hopefully now you'll see that the benefit far outweighs the effort. And what you do today and tomorrow will begin to create a habit for successful lifelong change!

Interested in learning more about the TRACK component of MyMenu Concierge? Learn more about it on the TRACK page. Then, explore the other key components of our health and wellbeing app: EAT, CALIBRATE, SUPERKIDS.

Ready to dive in and start tracking? Sign up today!