How To Keep A Food And Mood Journal

Food and mood journals are very important in my practice. I use them to get a feel for the diets and lifestyles of my clients. However, my clients are often just as interested in the information as I am. Even my clients who have tracked their food before by using apps like MyFitnessPal are fascinated by the information food and mood journals provide. This is because food and mood journals track dietary patterns, lifestyle choices, mood changes, bowel movements, medications and supplements, and more. I have talked a little bit about keeping a food and mood journal in previous posts, but it really warrants its own post. So, without further ado, here is how you can keep and benefit from a food and mood journal!

Food and mood journals are meant to help you find patterns in your lifestyle and diet that are affecting your mood, symptoms, and/or bowel movements. They do not provide enough information to make any formal diagnosis. However, they can be helpful when you are looking for foods or lifestyle choices that are negatively or positively impacting your health. One of the most popular ways people use FMJs is to help them identify food sensitivities.

What Should A Food And Mood Journal Look Like?

A food and mood can look pretty much anyway you would like it to look. It’s sort of like planners. People prefer different layouts. The one I currently use with my clients is in an app. However, you can use a bullet journal, a lined journal, a blank journal, pictures, voice memos, etc. I often recommend using whatever gets you excited. For some, that’s writing in a beautiful journal. Others prefer the ease of putting notes on their phone or taking pictures and making a digital scrapbook.

The main goal is to track the information in a way you can understand. However you do it, make sure you include the time of each entry. This is important to figure out what exactly is causing your symptoms.

Tracking Your Diet In Your Food and Mood Journal

Each entry including food should have all the ingredients used to make your meal/snack, roughly how much was used, and the time at which you started and finished eating. These are all important to measure because all of them could be causing symptoms.

What you ate is important because there may be certain foods that you’re sensitive to in your diet. Once you start keeping a food and mood journal and examining the data, you may start to see a pattern around certain foods and certain symptoms. For instance, even though I follow the GAPS diet, there were certain foods that were on the “okay list” that I was sensitive to. I recognized this by looking for patterns in my diet as to what foods I was eating every time I had symptoms. Conversely, there may be foods that actually help your symptoms. These are also important to recognize and research.

How much of each food you eat is a factor you should track for nutrient purposes. You may find you are leaning very heavily on one food group and neglecting others. This can result in nutrient deficiency. It’s important to eat a varied diet. Identifying the foods you eat the most and swapping some of them out periodically with a food you rarely eat becomes much easier when you track this data in your journal.

The time it takes for you to eat a meal is also a critical piece of information. It’s important because there are multiple things that can go wrong in the northern part of the digestive tract when you eat too quickly. Rushed eating times mean that you should take a look at your stomach acid production and work to increase the amount of times you chew your food. If you are rushed, stressed, or distracted while you eat, your body may not be producing enough stomach acid. You can test this by doing the baking soda burp test that I go over in, The Stomach – How Digestion Works. Keep in mind that any dysfunction in the northern end of your digestive tract has a direct, negative effect on the southern end (your liver, pancreas, and intestines).

Tracking Your Medications And Supplements

Medications and supplements are pretty easy to track. Simply list all of your meds and supps in your journal along with dosages and the time you took them. Tracking these is of utmost importance when you are working with a practitioner because we need to find out what we should and shouldn’t recommend that you take in addition to your current regimen.

Many medications have contraindications and many of them deplete certain vitamins and/or minerals. When your doctor prescribed the medication, they should have informed you of what (if any) nutrients it depletes and recommend that you take a supplement to counteract the depletion. However, not all doctors do this. This is why it’s important for practitioners to check for depletions. Contraindications mean that the medication may react negatively with other medications or supplements. This is important for your practitioner to know before they start to recommend supplement changes. It’s also important for you to know on your health journey. Be sure to look up contraindications and depletions on any drug you take.

Tracking Your Lifestyle Choices In Your Food And Mood Journal

Lifestyle is a broad category. Some people choose to only track physical activity like workouts. Others choose to track things like hobbies, life events, sleep, and/or time spent with people they love in addition to physical activity.

It can be interesting to track this information because you may find that you don’t get to your hobbies as often as you’d like or your life events are mostly stressful. These are an important part of holistic health. Your diet could be absolutely flawless and you may still suffer from health concerns if you are not sleeping or participating in things that bring you joy.

When you track your lifestyle choices, put down what you did and how much time it took. This will tell you where your priorities lie and help you shift them if you don’t like where they are currently.

Tracking Your Mood And Symptoms

Mood and symptoms are the most important parts of your food and mood journal to track. The variations in your mood can tell you a lot about how your diet and lifestyle are fueling you. Your symptoms are your body’s way of letting you know that there is something wrong. Some days will be better than others (even in a healthy person), but the state of your mood and body are our gauges.

Every time you create an entry in your FMJ, you should add what your mood and symptoms are. Were you relaxed and happy while eating or were you anxious? Did you have acid reflux or brain fog? Did you feel present or energized? When you work with a practitioner, you should be as detailed as possible to give them the most information possible. Some things you may not think are important may be more helpful than you think.

Most of the time, you can just add your mood when you track other activities. Usually, drastic mood shifts accompany life events (which you should put down in your journal). The only time you should log your mood alone in an entry is if there is a sudden or drastic shift in your mood for no apparent reason.

Symptoms can come on at seemingly random times, so you will likely make entries that are just for symptoms (with mood added). Be sure to remember to include the time that the symptom started occurring.

Tracking Your Bowel Movements

To track bowel movements, you will use the Bristol stool chart. This chart is used by practitioners all over the country as an easy way for clients to describe the texture and consistency of their stool. The goal is to be in the middle of the chart at a #3 or #4. A #5 is also acceptable. An ideal number of bowel movements is 1-3 daily. Less than 1 a day and you are considered constipated.

In addition to tracking the frequency and Bristol number of your stool, you should also track color changes. Even if it’s just a lighter brown than usual, log it. Also note if there is any blood or mucous in the stool. These are important details for your practitioner to know.

How To Interpret Your Food And Mood Journal

Now comes the challenging part. Interpreting what your body is trying to tell you through all your symptoms. If you are working with a practitioner, you won’t have to worry about this part so much. For those of you looking to go on this journey alone, here’s most of what I’m looking for as an NTP:

How much of your diet consists of whole, nutrient dense foods.
How much of your diet is processed food or fast food.
If your diet is skewed toward one food group.
Patterns in how certain lifestyle and dietary choices are affecting mood and symptoms (e.g. every time you eat dairy, you have brain fog).
Depletions caused by medications.
How your mood affects your symptoms.
What the quality of your food is.
The amount of sugar you’re eating each day.
How much water you’re drinking
What the quality of water is (is it filtered? What kind of filter do you use? Do you live in an area that has several known toxins in the water? etc.)
Where in the digestive tract you are have the most issues.
If you’re relaxed while eating.
What times you are eating.
If you notice improvements while taking certain medications or supplements.
What your doing to relieve stress.
What the toxin load of your food is.
What the quality of your cookware is.

Some of these things should not be done by someone who is not trained to see dietary patterns. I can identify where most of the issues are coming in the digestive tract through my training. This is not something I can teach in a single blog article. However, identifying the quality of your food and water, the sourcing, how much sugar your eating, the emotional state you’re in while eating, how fast you chew, and what you are turning to for stress relief are some of the things that anybody can do on their own with an FMJ. Some things will require some research. If you want an article on any of these topics let me know in the comments!

I do have a few things to note if you are looking for food sensitivities in your FMJ:

Medications may have side effects, so it’s important to research those to make sure that your symptom isn’t just a side effect of a drug.
Sensitivity reactions can happen immediately to up to 3 days after you’ve eaten a food you’re sensitive to.
Work to replace the food, rather than “cutting it out.” Otherwise, you could end up feeling deprived.

Our bodies are beautifully intricate. It can be hard to interpret some of the things it tries to tell you. If you find yourself stuck at any point, you can always schedule a free discovery call with me. I can answer some basic questions and/or we can set you up as a client and begin to work together to help you reach your goals.

Summary

A food and mood journal is a necessity in your health journey. It’s an easy way to look objectively at your diet and lifestyle.

One group of people I would not recommend keeping a food and mood journal are those who struggle with eating disorders. If you struggle with an eating disorder and tracking your food is triggering for you, please stay away from FMJs.

If you are working with a practitioner, it’s important to give them as many details as possible. We can only address and support what we know about. There is no need to be embarrassed. Trust me. Not only do I have first hand experience with my IBD, but my schooling and previous clients have exposed me to a ton of different symptoms and root causes. If anything, my nerdy practitioner brain probably finds it fascinating.

If you have any questions, pop them down below! I hope you all have beautiful weeks!