I just started keeping a food journal on my iPad. It’s already changing the way I eat.

One of the global affects of the covid19 pandemic has been spending more time at home. And as we spend more time at home we started developing a new hobby: cooking. This new hobby seems to go well hand in hand with a prior hobby of mine which was eating. As this new home activity takes on, I found myself planning, taking pictures, thinking and writing more and more about food. Having an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil has been very helpful in starting this journal on the Defter Notes app.

It all started because I have been on a social media detox. You see, I have a habit of collecting food photos and they just started piling up on my phone. Recently I didn’t know what to do with all those pictures of the food I’ve been cooking (and eating). Since the pandemic locked us up, cooking has become more than just a nutrition intake activity and slowly started becoming an event of researching recepies and trying out new techniques. This meant, I also needed a space to save the recipes I’ve been trying out.

As I have already been using Defter Notes on my iPad Pro for planning and gratitude journaling, I had the idea to start an old school scrapbook style food journal in the same space. A handwritten journal about daily eating, stories and recepies was what I had in mind, instead of a calorie counter health log.

I started by trying out a few different layouts, paper colors, pencil sizes and ended up with a black board and chalk style. I started by adding some of the recent pictures and taking notes on what I could remember about that day.

As I recalled and wrote down the details about the food I was cooking, I realized I have been gravitating towards more and more junk food - pizza, noodles, burgers. As I continued journaling I came to realize the reason behind this was because this type of food reminded me of the pre-pandemic life.

I also found out that eating is an act of remembering. There were days I have been feeling nostalgic towards a certain cuisine. Like when I have been living in Sweden, and I first started cooking at home… My home-coking tend to gravitate towards those recipes on certain days. I never would have figured out these connections if I stuck to calorie counting and ignored the emotional connection to food.

There were lots of days on pizza making, bread making, bun making: Japanese milk bread, Turkish pide, Neapolitan pizza… So many dough versions tried and mastered. I added url links to my favorite baking web pages with the recipes and calculators. I now seem to understand how I gained all that pandemic weight. Maybe I should also add links to my favorite calorie burning exercises.

Most important part of this journaling practice is, I gained insight to my pandemic eating habits. Analyzing and reflecting are important exercises in practicing mindfullness for a better and healthier life. With spending just 15 minutes a day to journal I’m already feeling better about the way I eat and how I want to proceed with my new found cooking joy.

Do you keep track of what you cook and eat? Give it a try and create a food journal with you style of note taking with Defter Notes. You can download Defter Notes on the App Store.