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Would it surprise you if I said I’ve spent plenty of time in my food freedom logging and tracking my food in a calorie counting app? After all, the Whole30 discourages you from counting, tracking, or logging your food. (It’s not a rule, but it’s a strong recommendation based on more than a decade of experience.) Plus, I’ve written plenty about how tracking calories often leads to a disconnected relationship with food and your body. So why on earth would I ever create a free MyFitnessPal account?
I got a DM yesterday asking my thoughts on tracking and logging meals, and it reminded me I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while. Here are three reasons why you might want to track and log your food—and how to do it in a way that furthers your health or performance goals while protecting your mental health.
Reason #1: To hit a protein goal
Everyone is talking about protein right now—how much you should be eating, and why eating enough can be the key to feeling and performing your best. I remember when a performance coach first told me to aim for 120 grams of protein a day. (That was a specific number based on my body, activity levels, and goals.) I told him with such confidence, “I already get that; every meal has protein.” Still, he asked me to track and log my food for at least the first week so he could evaluate.
Imagine my amazement when I fell far short of my goal on the first day. My “high protein” breakfast only contained 18 grams—way less than I assumed. My lunch (deli turkey on a big salad) was barely 20 grams. At the end of the day, my total was around 80 grams of protein—nowhere near enough to support my muscle mass and activity levels. What I thought was “enough” protein… wasn’t.
So, I tracked and logged my meals for the next two weeks. I read every label and made swaps to ensure all of my meals were protein-dense. After two weeks, I was hitting my goal consistently and felt confident in how to do it—so I stopped all of my tracking.
Reason #2: During a big dietary change
I recently read a post from a person doing the Plant-Based Whole30 for the first time. They were sharing what they ate in a day, and someone else on the thread said, “Whoa, that doesn’t sound like nearly enough food.” (I did some quick math myself—it was maybe 1,000 calories. Not enough!)
Coming to the Original or Plant-Based Whole30 from a Standard American Diet is a big dietary change. It’s likely you’ll be faced with many unfamiliar foods. You may not know how many calories, carbs, protein, or fat are in avocado, tofu, or almond butter, or what those percentages next to ground meat represent. Label reading and some short-term, rough tracking can help you get familiar with the new staples in your diet and ensure you’re eating the right amount.
Most people write to me asking if I think they’re over-eating on the Whole30. Truth is, it’s far more likely you’ll under-eat when you change to a whole foods-based approach. Transitioning from ultra-processed foods, fast food, takeout, and alcohol to the Whole30 likely brings a big shift in calories, added sugar, and added fat. We have a dietitian-approved, flexible meal template to guide your portions, so if you follow that in a way that suits your context, you’ll eat enough. But if you share a day of eating and our feedback is, “It doesn’t look like you’re eating enough of X (protein, carbs, added fat),” you may want to roughly track just those macros on paper for a few days until you get the hang of portion sizes. (Note, this a step below detailed calorie or macro-tracking in an app. And it’s just for a few days, as an awareness tool.)
Reason #3: When you have a performance goal
Not every dietary change stems from a health goal. If you want to run faster, lift more, hike farther, or change your body comp, that’s a performance goal. And those efforts may require that you pay closer attention to your calories, macros, and meals.
In 2017, I worked with another performance coach on my hiking. After looking at a week of typical meals, he told me to double my carbs. I then tracked my meals in detail for another two weeks to ensure I was consistently hitting my goal. (I never looked back, by the way—keto is not for me.) Again, once I realized how many carbs I needed and where to get them, I didn’t need to keep tracking.
If you start CrossFit, take on a new sport, or have a weight loss goal, tracking and logging may be a helpful tool in your arsenal. Ideally, you’ll work with an experienced coach or use a template created by a qualified professional to ensure the recommendations you’re following are physically and mentally healthy.
The common denominator
You’ll notice that in all of my examples, I suggest that you track for a short period of time, then use what you’ve learned to continue crafting your meals. For most of us, tracking and logging calories is fraught with risk. We’ve been indoctrinated into a diet mindset, which says if this many calories is good, less is always better. We may feel great eating a certain way, but panic seeing that number in our tracking app. Over time, tracking and logging may play into disordered eating habits, or take you further away from the connection to your own body. (I’ve heard far too many people say, “I’m still hungry, but I’m out of points.”)
Tracking can be valuable when used as a short-term awareness tool. Doing so reduces the associated risks, and reinforces that your body is the best judge of how much you should be eating. Once you’ve learned what you needed to know, stop tracking, stay connected to your body, and use your energy, activity levels, performance, recovery, cravings, focus, and mood to tweak your meal template.