Printable Bariatric Food Journal (FREE Downloadable PDF)

Why Use the Printable Bariatric Food Journal?

There’s nothing like having 3-6 months of routine meetings with dietitians and doctors to get someone on a path to success. In those meetings, your food journal will be crucial to check what you’ve done with your diets. The indicators in the journal are the source of information needed to control your dietary habits and monitor new eating habits according to your post-op condition.

What is the Bariatric Food Journal?

A bariatric food journal is a diary you need to fill out after bariatric surgery. It involves not only your food and beverage intake but also your daily activities.

The following are the indicators that you need to pay attention to when writing in your bariatric journal:

• Date: The day you fill the journal.
• Weight: Your body weight today when measured using a scale.
• Weight goal: Your target body weight.
• Hours of sleep: How long did you sleep?
• Energy: What do you feel about your body today?
• Workouts: What kind of exercise did you do and how long?
• Daily meal and time (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks): The time you eat
• Food description: What kind of food do you eat, how do you cook it, and how much is the portion?
• Nutrition intake (protein, carb, fat, sugar, calories, water): You can check it on a diet app with nutrition facts or a nutrition tracking catalogue.

How to Use the Bariatric Food Log?

The following is the procedure for using the food journal in this page:

1. Write down the day you fill out the journal (for example, June 7th, 2023). This journal sheet is only for one day, so you must fill out a new sheet tomorrow.
2. Note your weight today on “Weight” and your target body weight on “Weight goal.” You can use either kg or lbs, depending on which you’re more familiar with.
3. Jot down how long you slept on “Sleep” (for example 8 hours).
4. On “Workout,” please indicate what kind of exercise you did and its duration. If you didn’t do any exercise today, just leave it empty.
5. At the end of the day, describe your body’s energy by circling one of the options from “Energy”.
6. Note the time you eat today in the “Time” column according to the time of day on the “Daily Meal.” For example, you write 7:10 AM for breakfast.
7. Write the “Food Description” in as much detail as you can. Please include the name of your food, how you make it, and how many portions you eat. Don’t forget to write the brands if you buy the food in the supermarket or restaurant. For example, you ate 1 portion of Taco Bell’s chicken burrito at lunch.
8. To fill the nutrition columns (“Protein,” “Carb,” etc.), you can use any calorie counter or diet app according to your preference. If you can’t find your food on it, choose another food similar to the one you ate. If you eat any food or beverage products, you can get the information you need from the nutrition facts on the package. For example, a large chicken burrito has 45 grams of protein, 84 grams of carbohydrates, 21 grams of fats, and no sugar.
9. Remember to check your drinks. For example, if you drank four 16-ounce glasses of water, write “64 oz” in the “Water” column. If you drink soft drinks or other processed drinks, they also contain sugars, so write that in the respective column.

What are the Benefits of Using a Bariatric Food Diary?

Food journaling is valuable for increasing the awareness about your eating habits and healthy behaviors to support your body. You’ll learn what foods affect your body positively or negatively.

It’s only human to slip up on what you eat occasionally. Using the food journal, you can start noticing these habits and making a progress to improve them. For example:

• After a few weeks of journaling, you noticed that you often had a very high carbohydrate intake with a low protein amount. So, you start working on portioning to get a more balanced nutritional diet.
• You find another habit of consuming sweetened drinks in large glasses each week. So, the next target is reducing the size of your glass or the frequency of taking a sweet drink.

Furthermore, you can discuss your food journal with a dietitian. They’ll be able to assess your dietary habits, recommend improving certain habits, or identify problems that hinder you from losing weight.

Simply put, a food journal will help you become more responsible in what you eat after a bariatric surgery.

Who should Use the Gastric Food Log?

This food journal is designed for bariatric surgery patients. Still, anyone doing a weight-loss diet (without surgery) can use it. You’re good to go as long as you have a daily intake target and a weight goal.

When should You Use the Gastric Food Diary?

A bariatric patient can use the food journal before and after the surgery:¹

• After the bariatric surgery. You’re going to undergo a gradual change in diet for a while after the surgery. The diet is adapted to your body’s food texture tolerance while maintaining the required nutritional values. For example, you’d only take liquid diets at the start (e.g., juice, broth, low-fat milk, protein shakes, etc.). In the 2nd to 4th week, you can eat foods with smooth texture. After the 4th week, you’d start to eat soft food until you could gradually move to regular foods. When going through this process, you’d write in the food journal from the day you’re discharged from the hospital until you reach the weight goal.
• Before the bariatric surgery. A study reported an average BMI of 48 kg/m² from bariatric surgery patients.² This BMI level correlates to the liver enlargement caused by the accumulation of glycogen, water, and fats.¹ In turn, the surgery and the recovery period would be more likely to be longer. A weight-loss diet before the surgery could help achieve a safer condition for surgery. The diet usually takes 2-12 weeks according to your BMI, comorbidity, and individual response to specific diets. So, it’d serve double as preparing you for the post-operation dietary habit.