Meals Today

In late 2012, I started taking photos of (almost) everything I eat. The reasons for this are twofold.

First, I'd like to track (slash, be held accountable for) everything I eat. However, I've tried things like My Fitness Pal, but it's too difficult, tedious, and time-consuming to do so with our diet.  Most of our meals are homemade and include many ingredients.  Furthermore, we usually try one to two new recipes per week, so there would always be more to enter.  If there was a quick way to enter recipes, I'd be more eager to do so. But I just don't have 10 hours per week to enter this stuff.

On the other hand, it's easy to take a photo of everything I eat with my spiffy smart phone, and Instagram makes my food photos look more interesting.  Although I don't have the nutritional information to go along with it, I can get a general picture of how "well" I eat on certain days by looking at the photos.

Second, I like being able to flip back through previously-eaten meals while meal-planning. Sometimes when I'm out of the habit of meal-planning, I draw a blank when starting the habit again. I can't seem to remember "good" meals or even our "typical" meals. I've been meaning to type up my meal-plans on this blog for ages but never got around to it. At least with daily photos, I can look back when I feel like trying something different.

Third, since I'm trying various food-elimination diets, I can visually inspect my diet for a day/week and assess how I felt that week.

There are two additional benefits. First, since I'm already taking photos each day and uploading them to Blogger from my phone, it's easier to type up recipes.  I just write up what I ate, with a link (if relevant). Then I just upload or link to the photo.

And lastly knowing that I'm going to be taking a public photo forces me to think before deciding to eat something. This helps me resist junk food cravings and make healthier food choices.

I don't always manage to take photos of everything I eat each day, so I won't necessarily have a post each day, but I'll try. 

Meals Today posts can be found via the mealstoday tag.