7 ways to make tracking your food easier
Tracking your food can seem quite overwhelming at the start – we totally get it. We both thought so too when we first started! But in our opinion it’s totally worth the learning curve! Not only is it a great way to learn about the nutritional content of food and portion sizes (which are skills that will help you for LIFE), it’s also the most efficient and effective way to achieve a body composition goal!
So we wanted to give you some practical tips to help make tracking easier and less time consuming…
1. Log your meals ahead of time
Planning ahead is the number one key to success. Spend 10-15 minutes entering your meals into your food tracking app the night before to ensure you are reaching your targets. Make sure you budget enough calories for each meal and fit in snacks for times you are hungry! This will also help prevent you from making choices that don’t align with your goals and reduce decision fatigue during the day as everything is already planned.
2. Focus on just calories & protein
Don’t try to hit every macro to the gram, especially when new to tracking! We don’t do that ourselves and we certainly don’t expect you to either! Tracking just calories and protein will get you the same results without feeling too overwhelmed!
3. Stick to similar meals for the week
Don’t set yourself a different meal plan for everyday – that can make things overwhelming with all of the meals you need to prep. Have a similar breakfast each day and then cycle through 2-3 different lunch/dinner options and snack options to help make prep easier. Mix it up the following week to keep things fresh!
4. Keep your meals simple
Avoid complex recipes to start with. Construct your meals using a few of your favourite protein, carb, veggie and fat sources. Use pre-made sauces and seasonings to add flavour!
5. Opt for convenience foods
If you are really time poor, opt for things like ready-made meals, pre-cooked protein sources, microwave rice, pre-made salads, frozen veggies, etc. to cut down your meal prep time! These items will all be very easy to track too as all you need to do is scan the barcodes!
6. Utilise barcode scanners where possible
For packaged foods, just scan the barcode on the label instead of manually searching for the food in the database. This will save you heaps of time and often will ensure you are using the most accurate nutrition information too.
7. Copy & paste meals to save time
Instead of entering the same food items individually every day, just copy and paste meals over to the next day to save time! Save your favourite meals in the app for efficient tracking.
Put these tips into practice and you’ll be a pro at tracking your food in no time! We personally believe that everyone has time to track their food – it’s just a matter of making it a priority. Most of our clients have gotten to the point that it takes them 5-10 minutes a day to track their whole day of food!
If you want to learn how to track your food and achieve your goals in the most effective way, we would love to help you! Check out our 1:1 Personalised Coaching for more information!
