与其他活动相比，我们对放入口中的东西很少关心，这让我感到惊讶。这是我们每天做出的最重要的决定之一，它可以影响一切：从我们的情绪和能量水平(mood and energy levels)到长期健康(term health)，无论是精神上还是身体上。然而，我们大多数人倾向于依赖传闻和“我们在网上阅读的东西”或我们在其他成功人士身上观察到的模式，而不是获得关于哪些有效哪些无效的硬数据。因为没有适合所有人的灵丹妙药。我们根据数字选择贷款。我们选择我们的租金，我们超市篮子里的产品(supermarket basket)，我们的汽车，我们的假期和我们的机票。然而，我们未能将同样的原则应用于食物。此外，食物占据了我们一天的大部分时间：从购买食材、准备（或订购）到食用。
在本文中，我将讨论记录食物的好处和陷阱。我已经这样做了 9 个月，效果非常好：体重减轻了 23 公斤（50 磅），饮食更适合我的生活方式，而且能量水平更高。虽然这可能是一个充满挑战的旅程，但你可以从我自己的例子中得出关于奖励的结论。
我是谁以及它是如何开始的
现在，我是一名软件工程师(software engineer)。在此之前，我曾经连续几天做很多核心数学。数字是我生活中自然而重要的一部分，但不知何故，我觉得跟踪我的开支是“不正确的”，甚至从未考虑过记录我的食物摄入量(food intake)。我一直认为我不能被如此平凡而无聊的任务所困扰。反正我的身体真的很好用。或者是吗？
我想在我的脑海里，我总是害怕量化我肚子里发生的事情。我知道我吃得太多，但多少是太多，你永远不知道。或者至少在你测量之前。这就是 9 个月前一顿真正的饭菜的样子（真正的内疚快乐图片(pleasure picture)！）：
我在睡眠不足、营养不良和咖啡因摄入量(caffeine intake)极高之间摇摆不定，试图把自己拖到第二天。一周中的每一天。
是什么让我失望了
多年来，我一直很沮丧，因为我对自己的思想如此雄心勃勃，但对我的身体却没有。我想我不是唯一一个有同样问题的人。所以我意识到，与其改变我的野心方向，我应该找到一种方法来利用它们并利用它们来改善我的身体。那么有什么比用关于我身体的数据来喂养我的大脑更好的方法呢？回想起来，这很明显。
但是关于哲学已经足够了。2014 年 3 月上旬从(March 2014)温哥华(Vancouver)回来，我跳上了体重秤。我很震惊。这是我有生以来第一次超过 100 公斤（225 磅）。如果你在上学期间超重，你会记得当你的体育老师在学年(school year)开始时给你称体重时，同事们的咯咯笑声。
但是现在没有咯咯的笑声。在我快 30 岁的路上，我经常膝盖疼痛，并注意到在Qwan Ki Do(Qwan Ki Do)训练期间我的身体与其他人相比效率低下。虽然其他人可以做几十个俯卧撑或优雅地进行几十分钟的高强度练习，但我很容易感到疲倦并放弃或在大多数练习中成为最后一个。在日常活动中，它并不那么明显，尤其是因为我用咖啡掩盖了它。但我知道这并没有领先任何地方，而且未来看起来一点也不光明。
记录你吃什么的好处
回想起来，我希望我能更多地了解记录食物的好处。我不仅会受到更多鼓励，而且会看到这样做的更大目的：
了解进来的东西。(Understanding What Comes In.)在研究了过去 9 个月进入我系统的数百种食物的营养价值后，我感到惊讶的次数比你想象的要多。回首往事，我意识到，我对食物的好坏的印象大多来自于其他人的非正式意见。举一个简单的例子，我喜欢红西瓜。(Just)它(Which)被宣传为“几乎没有卡路里”（因为它是“水果”）。但是，在任何食品数据库中(food database)搜索一个关键字(keyword search)是它含有大量糖的信息。仍然不是很多卡路里，但我想在夏天每天吃 1-2 公斤是不可持续的 🙂 这很有意义，但我从未想过这一点。
还有，我心爱的蘑菇。作为我转变(my transformation)的一部分（从一个 102 公斤/225磅的程序员(lbs programmer)缺乏精力到健康和精力充沛的我），我几乎完全放弃了吃肉。这意味着我必须注意我吃的蛋白质的量。蘑菇和奶酪一起出现在高蛋白食物的顶部。因为我已经喜欢吃它们了，所以我决定更频繁地这样做，因为现在我也有充分的理由。
提高对营养成分的认识。(Raising Awareness About Nutritional Contents.)在你开始获得更多能量后，你很快就会意识到卡路里是等式中最不重要的部分。撇开每个人饮食所特有的某些营养需求不谈（例如，如果你不吃肉，请确保你摄入了足够的蛋白质），探索我通常吃的食物的营养价值教会了我很多东西。
我吃的椒盐脆饼的脂肪含量与我吃的所谓的“脂肪”奶酪几乎相同。看看那块黑巧克力。谁会想到这里和那里的一些可可会严重堵塞你的动脉？
有些食物会含有不寻常的营养成分，你甚至可能没有意识到这一点。现在和我一起工作的人在刚开始工作的几周内总是会对他们吃的食物感到惊讶。给自己一个机会，每隔几天明智地花几分钟阅读这些内容。
学习评估你盘子里的东西。(Learning to Evaluate What's on Your Plate.)记录你的食物会养成一个很好的习惯，记住你盘子里有什么，更重要的是，在吃之前评估它（无论是数量还是质量）。(quantity and quality)起初我用眼球，在得到一个好的规模之前。我只是时不时地使用体重秤来保持自己现在的训练。一些对我有用的策略：
- 阅读餐厅菜单(restaurant menu)中的数量。
- 当您从超市购买包装食品（比如说奶酪）时，您会知道总量，并且更容易估计您在某餐中吃了多少份。
从长远来看，这是一项非常重要的技能。您将开始知道您需要什么样的食物，以及需要多少食物才能让您保持饱腹感并保持正确的体重。
食品采伐的障碍
不要以为你会免费获得所有的好东西。这需要一些努力，但没有你想象的那么多。该过程可能很麻烦（尽管现在使用像MyFitnessPal这样的软件我会被迫不同意）或者您可能不相信结果。但这一切都分解为您计划从中获得什么好处。如果您真的没有问题或没有为自己选择任何类型的好处，我会说您很可能不会长期养成这种习惯。
做这件事不会花很多时间吗？(Doesn't it take a lot of time to do it?)实际上，这是我听到的最常见的问题之一。现在我每天花 5 分钟来做这件事，我认为这段时间花得非常好。当然，一开始需要更长的时间。如果我没有计划以任何方式使用这些数据，我就不会看到每天花 5(spending 5)分钟这样做的意义。我从其他人那里得到了类似的结果，即使他们刚开始这样做，每天也大多不到 10 分钟。
但是数据不可靠吗？(But isn't the data unreliable?)当然如此。就像您在生活中使用的每一条数据一样。食品(Food)数据库（尤其是MyFitnessPal的）对于超市包装的食品更为准确。而且我通常用生的原料来估计熟食的卡路里数。(calorie count)但话又说回来，为什么需要 100 % precision？您(Did)知道您日常使用的大多数数据都是不准确的吗？
- 您用来称量自己的秤不准确。超市里的蔬菜也有错误率(error rate)。
- 您汽车的车速表通常会进行调整，使其显示的速度高于您的实际行驶速度，以帮助您避免事故并鼓励更平衡的驾驶方式(driving style)。不相信我？使用GPS 应用程序(GPS app)测量速度，您就会明白我在说什么。
100 % percent accurate的数据并不是我们生活所需要的。很多时候，如果我们知道如何克服它，“消费级”错误率就足够了。(error rate)有很多方法可以以相当高的价格获得更准确的读数，但作为一个普通人，你并不真正需要它。
但我会忘记记录一些项目。(But I'll forget to log some items.)是的你将会。我答应过你不会吗？🙂任何习惯(Any habit)都需要时间来培养。在最初的几周内，您不会 100 % right你很有可能每天吃 3 次食物，至少再持续几十年，所以我认为拥有更多关于这方面的数据是值得投资的。
结论
记录你的食物是一个赌注。你拥有的数据越多，你就会越了解自己。请注意，这也取决于您的兴趣程度以及您解释数据的能力。调整我的饮食和减肥彻底改变了我的生活——我的血液测试(blood test)结果几乎在每个重要章节中都提高了 25% 以上。有许多神话尚未经受住数据的考验。与其依赖诸如“吃X(eat X)，因为它对Y有益”这样的非正式建议，不如控制自己并做出决定？我最喜欢的例子是巧克力对减肥有多么糟糕——(loss —)我在减肥的同时每月吃 3 公斤（6.6 磅）。从长远来看它不好还有其他原因，但实际上——没有灵丹妙药！我最终练习了间歇性禁食(Intermittent Fasting)，每天只吃两餐。这帮助我减掉了 23 公斤（50 磅）并彻底改变了我的生活。我现在大部分时间都提前计划了我的饭菜，并且一整天都感觉精力充沛。最重要的是，我对通过食物控制能量水平的能力非常有信心。
The Benefits & Pitfalls Of Logging Your Food Intake
I'm ѕυrprіsed at how little concern we have for what we are putting intо our mouths compared to other activities. It's оne of the most important decisions that we make daily, that can influence everything: from our mood аnd energy levels to long term health, both mentally and рhуsicаlly. And yet most of us tend to rely on hearsaу and "stυff we reаd оnline" or pаtterns that we have observed in other successful peoplе, instead of gеtting hard datа abоut what works and what doesn't. Because there is no silver bullet that works for everyone. We choose our loanѕ based on numbers. We choose our rent, the prodυcts in our ѕupermarket basket, our car, our vacationѕ and our plane tickets. Yet, we fail to apply the same principles to food. Moreover, food takes up a significant chunk of our dаy: frоm buying the ingredients, preparing it (or ordering it) to eatіng it.
In this article, I'm going to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of logging your food. I've been doing this for 9 months, with awesome results: 23 kg lost (50 lbs) and a diet that suits my lifestyle better with much higher energy levels. While it might turn out to be a challenging journey, you can draw conclusions from my own example about the rewards.
Who I Am And How It Started
Right now, I'm a software engineer. And before that, I used to do a lot of hardcore maths for days on end. Numbers are a natural and crucial part of my life, and yet somehow I felt it's "not right" to track my expenses and never even considered logging my food intake. I always thought that I cannot be bothered with such a mundane and boring task. My body works really well anyway. Or does it?
I guess in the back of my mind I was always afraid to quantify what was going on in my belly. I knew I was eating too much, but how much is too much, you can never know. Or at least until you measure. This is how an actual meal looked 9 months ago (actual guilty pleasure picture!):
I was bouncing between lack of sleep, poor nutrition and extremely high caffeine intake, trying to drag myself into the next day. Each day of the week.
What Tipped Me Off
I had been frustrated for years on end that I am so ambitious about my mind, but not about my body. I guess I'm not the only one out there with the same problem. So I realised that instead of changing the direction of my ambitions, I should find a way to tap into them and use them to improve my body. So what better way than to feed my brain with data about my body? And come to think of it in retrospect, that was pretty obvious.
But enough about philosophy already. Coming back from Vancouver, at the beginning of March 2014, I hopped on a scale. And I was shocked. For the first time in my life, it was over 100kg (225 lbs). If you ever were overweight during school, you can remember the giggles of your colleagues when your sports teacher would weigh you once at the beginning of the school year.
But now there was no giggling. I was on my way to turning 30, and I had frequent knee pains and noticed how inefficient my body was compared to others during my Qwan Ki Do trainings. While others could do tens of push-ups or gracefully go through tens of minutes of intense practice, I would get tired very easily and give up or be the last in most exercises. In day-to-day activity it wasn't so noticeable, especially since I covered it up with coffee. But I knew that this wasn't leading anywhere and that the future did not look bright at all.
Benefits Of Logging What You Eat
Looking back, I wish I had known more about the benefits of logging my food. Not only would I have been more encouraged, but I would have seen the bigger purpose in doing it:
Understanding What Comes In. After studying the nutritional values of literally hundreds of foods that entered my system for the past 9 months, I was surprised more often than you would imagine. Looking back, I realise that most of my impressions of what is good or what is bad in terms of food were previously derived from other people's informal opinions. Just to give one quick example, I love red watermelon. Which is marketed as having "almost no calories at all" (because it's "fruit"). However, one keyword search away in any food database is the information that it contains huge amounts of sugar. Still not a whole lot of calories, but I guess it isn't sustainable to eat 1-2 kg each day during the summer 🙂 It makes a lot of sense, but I had never thought about that.
Also, my beloved mushrooms. As part of my transformation (from an 102kg/225 lbs programmer lacking energy to the fit and energetic me), I gave up eating meat almost completely. This meant that I had to pay attention to the amount of protein that I was eating. Mushrooms popped up in the top of high-protein foods, together with cheese. Since I already loved eating them, I decided to do it more frequently since now I also had a good reason.
Raising Awareness About Nutritional Contents. After you start getting more energy, you'll soon realise that calories are the least important part of the equation. Leaving aside certain nutritional needs that are specific to each person's diet (for example, make sure that you are getting enough proteins if you aren't eating meat), exploring the nutritional values of foods that I usually eat has taught me a whole lot.
The pretzels that I eat have almost the same amount of fats as the supposed "fatty" cheese that I am eating. And look at that dark chocolate too. Who would have thought that some cocoa here and there will clog your arteries that badly?
Some foods will have an unusual amount of nutrients and you might not even be aware of it. People I work with nowadays are always surprised within their first weeks about the foods that they eat. Give yourself a chance and spend a few minutes wisely every few days to read about those.
Learning to Evaluate What's on Your Plate. Logging your food will create a very good habit of remembering what is in your plate, and more importantly, evaluating it (both by quantity and quality) before eating. I used to eyeball at first, before getting a good scale. I only use the scale every now and then to keep myself trained right now. Some strategies that worked for me:
- Read the quantities in the restaurant menu.
- When you are buying packaged food from the supermarket (let's say cheese), you will know the total quantity and it's easier to estimate what fraction of it you are eating at a given meal.
On the longer term, this is a very important skill to have. You will start to know what kind of food you need and in what quantities to keep you satiated and at the correct weight.
Barriers For Food Logging
Don't imagine that you will get all the goodies for free. It will take some effort, but not as much as you would imagine. The procedure might be cumbersome (although, nowadays with software like MyFitnessPal I would be forced to disagree) or you might not trust the results. But it all breaks down to what benefits you plan to obtain from it. If you don't really have a problem or haven't chosen any type of benefit for yourself, I would say there is a very large probability for you to not engage with this habit on the longer term.
Doesn't it take a lot of time to do it? Actually, this is one of the most common questions that I hear. It now takes me 5 minutes each day to do it, and I consider that time very well spent. Of course, at the beginning it will take longer. And if I had no plan to use the data in any way, I would not see the point in spending 5 minutes of my day doing so. I get similar results from other people, mostly under 10 minutes each day even when they are at the beginning of doing so.
But isn't the data unreliable? Of course it is. Just like every piece of data you are working with in life. Food databases (especially MyFitnessPal's) are more accurate for supermarket-packaged food. And I usually use the raw ingredients to estimate the calorie count of the cooked food. But then again, why do you need 100% precision? Did you know that most data that you use day to day is inaccurate?
- The scale you use for weighing yourself is inaccurate. The one for veggies at the supermarket has an error rate too.
- The speedometer for your car is usually tweaked so that it shows a speed that is higher than your actual rate of travel, to help you avoid accidents and to encourage a more balanced driving style. Don't believe me? Measure the speed with a GPS app and you'll see what I'm talking about.
100% percent accurate data is not what we need to go about living our lives. Quite often, a "consumer-grade" error rate is sufficient if we know how to overcome it. There are ways to get more accurate readings at considerable prices, but as an average person, you don't really need that.
But I'll forget to log some items. Yes, you will. Did I promise you wouldn't? 🙂 Any habit takes time to create. You won't get it 100% right for the first few weeks and that is something that you have to accept and plan for. There's a good chance you'll be eating 3 times a day for at least a few more decades, so I think having more data about that is a worthwhile investment.
Conclusions
Logging your food is a bet. That the more data you have, the more you will get to know yourself. Be careful, that also depends on your level of interest and your ability to interpret the data too. Tweaking my diet and losing weight has changed my life completely - my blood test results improved more than 25% in almost every important chapter. There are a lot of myths that have yet to stand the test of data. Instead of relying on informal advice like "eat X because it's good for Y", how about taking control and making your own decisions? My favourite example is how bad chocolate is for weight loss — I was eating 3 kg (6.6 lbs) per month while losing weight. There are other reasons for it not being good on the longer term, but really — there is no silver bullet! I ended up practicing Intermittent Fasting and eating only 2 meals per day. This helped me lose 23 kg (50 lbs) and change my life completely. I now plan my meals ahead most of the time and feel much more energetic throughout the day. Most importantly, I am very confident in my ability to control my energy levels through food.
