7 Day Food Logging Process: The First Step

7-Day Food Log: Why Is It Required?

Here at The Driven, we require every new client to start by keeping track of their food intake for 7 whole days without changing a thing. This is one of the most important steps in my coaching process, and I will explain why below.

Let’s take Jane, a 40-year-old woman who is 5'9", weighs 180 pounds, and works out 4-5 days a week. After calculating her total daily energy expenditure, we find that she needs to consume between 2200 and 2600 calories a day just to maintain her body weight. Jane's Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is around 1500-1600 calories per day. This means if Jane were to sit in a chair all day and do nothing, she would burn this number of calories.

Jane, who is supposed to be eating 2200-2600 calories a day, signs up, and I add her to my training app where we undergo a 14-day onboarding process. She receives daily videos with tasks to complete and goes through the process.

One of the things Jane is told is that it is crucial to not change anything in her eating habits for seven days. This can be very difficult because new clients often want to dive in right away. I understand this, but this process is important.

I want to see Jane’s habits: the time she starts logging her first food, how far between her next meal is, what she is eating for those meals, and how much of it. This is our starting point. Without this information, we would miss a lot of crucial steps. I might overlook some beneficial foods she eats that I would now recommend more of. We also see some of her favorites that we do not cut out. For example, if she loves Snickers bars, we can include those occasionally because we do not completely cut things out of our diet. This makes life more enjoyable and the process that much more sustainable. Often time people cut too much out and then fail.

But most importantly, I want to see the 7-day average of her calories, fats, carbs, and protein.

Common Scenarios I See:

• Some people skip breakfast.

• Some eat a meal replacement for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and a regular dinner (not enough food).

• Some people don’t eat at all and then binge eat all night.

• Some eat too much, which is usually easier to manage in terms of working with them as a client.

• Some clients think they’re eating too much, but the 7-day food logging process reveals they are undereating by 800 calories.

• Some consume no protein and fill their calories with sugary drinks (Starbucks Frappuccino, anyone?).

  
  

If we skipped this step, it would be like Jane and I trying to find a light switch in the dark. We would have to guess where she is in terms of caloric intake and wouldn’t know where to start with macros.

Jane might be eating only 1400 calories a day when she needs to eat 2300. If we jumped straight to 2300 calories, she would likely feel full, bloated, might gain body fat, become constipated, and probably dislike me. However, the 7-day food log helps avoid this problem by showing us that Jane is only eating 1400 calories. We can then gradually increase her calorie intake while monitoring her body weight and biofeedback.

The 7-day food log essentially tells us our starting point. Regardless of who you are, this process is first. Very rarely will I start a client with a calorie deficit right away. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve done this, and most were in the beginning of my career.

What’s Next for Jane?

If Jane is eating appropriately and consuming roughly 2300 calories a day, we will proceed with the following steps:

1.     We would most likely start her around 2000-2300 calories a day and adjust her macros in her favor.

2.     We would continue to monitor her bodyweight and 9 times out of 10 the client start dropping weight, and we slowly increase food until we find her maintenance where she no longer is gaining or losing.

3.     We now hang out here at these markers for a bit and build that solid foundation. During this time, she gets more energy, puts on lean muscle mass, learns the importance of water intake, trains hard, loses inches, is pooping daily and feeling like a million bucks.

4.     We now can do a real calorie deficit for 10-12 weeks and drop her calories and emphasize protein and fats and drop carbs a little and increase her movement.

5.     Jane finishes the calorie deficit, and we reverse diet her back to maintenance, rinse and repeat!

If you are simply sitting at a calorie deficit for months on end. Odds are nothing is changing in your physique. You are low in energy and always tired.

If this is you, it is time to calculate your TDEE and work up to eating there first! You will thank me later.