By: Matt Fyock
Building on Lauren’s last blog post, I thought I’d share some tips I learned from trying food tracking myself for the first time. In early 2025, I found the holidays had made it hard for me to fit in my clothes, and I was struggling to shed some extra pounds. I expressed to Lauren a frustration that I was having trouble connecting how the food I was eating translated into progress with my weight goals. After trying food tracking for the first time, I found tracking to be a valuable resource to strengthen my knowledge of food, and improve my relationship with it. Here are some tips and learnings from my experience:
- Use a food tracker that works for you. I like using MacroFactor (https://macrofactorapp.com), an app based food tracker. I like it’s ‘AI photo logging feature’ which allows me to quickly log by taking a picture of my meal. I also like its straightforward approach to setting a goal and seeing my progress. It makes it easy for me to learn more about what is actually in the food I am eating.
- Recommend your goal for week 1 be to just log. Resist the temptation to take on more. Changing food habits while you’re trying to get in the practice of consistently logging might result in stopping the whole thing all-together. Convince yourself that the logging itself is enough change and progress for now. Remind yourself that you first need some data anyway before you think about what you might want to do differently with your food.
- Plan to log for a finish line, not to log forever. After a week or two of establishing a good rhythm of logging, drop in a finish line ‘pause date’ and a weight or other fitness goal to go with it. Even with a food tracker that works well, many of us (myself included) aren’t interested in logging everything we eat for the rest of our lives. I think that’s ok because for me, the learnings and benefits from the periods I log carry over into the periods I don’t log. I’ve had success bringing logging in and out of my routine as a tool, for a pre-set timeframe and goal. I stop logging at my pause date even if I didn’t hit the weight goal I set with it. I know I can resume again in the future when it makes sense.
- Embrace cheat days and skip days. Why cheat days are important: it’s easier for me to stay on-plan with food if I know there’s a day coming when I don’t have to. Why skip days are important: same as above, the routine of logging works better for me if I know there’s a day coming when I won’t have to. Many trackers like MacroFactor have skip day logic built in, and fill in assumed consumption on these days. I learned that there are days when logging just doesn’t work.
- Reflect with a friend or loved one on your learnings. As you track, you’ll discover things about your food and eating that you never knew. I couldn’t believe how much fat I took in from cheese, or how easy it was to consume more sugar than I wanted to. The discovery process includes pleasant surprises as well. I suspect you’ll find that some of your favorite ‘cheat foods’ are better for you then you think. As I learned, I found that reflecting on these learnings with others helped me to internalize them. It helped me change some habits with food, and promoted continuation of those good habits and benefits into periods when I pause logging. One of the best ways for us to fully learn and know something is to tell others about it.
I hope these tips inspire you to try food tracking and help you utilize this great tool with your health and wellness goals. Have you discovered any tips of your own from tracking? If so let us know! Share them with us at tuprosperes@protonmail.com and perhaps you’ll see them in a future Tu Prospères blog.
