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What You Need to Know About Starting a Food Diary
Why You Need to Keep a Diary

By Jennifer R. Scott, About.com

Updated May 29, 2008

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A food diary is probably one of the most important tools for anyone who wants to lose or maintain their weight. It is the ideal way to get a clear picture of your eating habits and to identify problem areas before they lead to weight plateaus or gains. These resources will help you get started.

1. Why You Need a Food Diary

Learn why starting a food diary is so important to long-term success.

2. Weight Loss 101: Keep a Food Diary

More on why keeping a food diary is such a great first step in your efforts to begin losing weight.

3. How to Keep a Food Diary

Learn how to cover all the basics and how to decide what's important to you in your own food diary.

4. Step-by-Step Food Diary

This article will walk you through a step-by-step process of creating and assessing your own food diary using a simple notebook or journal.

5. Food Diary Print-Out #1

This food diary provides blanks for your food intake as well as an area to record your emotional and/or binge eating tendencies and alternatives to them, for future reference.

6. Food Diary Print-Out #2

This food diary print-out provides a yes and no question-and-answer section that will help you reflect on your eating habits at the end of the day.

7. Questions Your Food Diary Can Answer

At the end of the day, answering these questions will be vital to your food diary helping you identify and understand your worst eating habits.
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