The Food Journal.

You keep two, not one

Without planning there is nothing to execute on. So one journal is the plan you write for yourself for the coming week, and the other is the honest record of what actually happened.

Journal one — the plan

Write the eating plan for your week before the week starts. This is the one that gives you power and control over your nutrition, instead of deciding while hungry.

Journal two — the record

Track your actual food and drink for seven days. Record everything — do not leave anything out. Include quantities and serving sizes as best you can.

Photograph everything

For one week, take a picture of everything you eat and keep the photos. They make the record far more accurate than memory does, and they can go straight into your journal.

If you are in the nutrition coaching programme or doing personal training, send them to fyziocoach@fyziogym.com.

What to write down each day

• Time of each meal, and how long since the one before
• What you ate and roughly how much
• What you drank — including water, and including what was not water
• Your energy before and after, on a 0–10 scale
• Sleep the night before — it changes what the day looks like
• Training that day, and where it sat relative to your meals
• Anything that went sideways, and honestly why

What to look for at the end of the week

Do not judge it. Read it like a clinician reading a chart.

• Where does energy reliably crash, and what came before it?
• Which meals were planned, and which were decided in the moment?
• Where did the gaps get too long?
• What does a good day actually look like for you — and can you repeat it deliberately?

The right food, eaten in the wrong state, at the wrong time, by a system that was never prepared to receive it, still produces a poor outcome.