You want to collect data for everything you eat for at least one full week (7 days or more) before you progress on to Step Two.  Remember that for this step you are not looking to make any changes to your current eating habits just practice logging everything you eat so that you can start understanding your eating habits.  A good food logging rhythm to get into is to start logging on Monday and then at the end of the week (i.e. on Sunday) to sit down and review and update your log for any data that is missing.

​

There may be days when you forget to log your food or you cannot log it for whatever reason.  Don’t worry, just start logging your food again when you can.  And make sure you record those days of gluttony.  There is often a temptation to avoid days of fun when we know we are eating badly such as those ice cream splurges or evenings out.  But these days will reveal some of your most insightful bad behaviours so log it all without any judgement.  You will learn how to tweak your eating habits so that you can still accommodate days like these and hit your goals.

​

However, it doesn’t end after week one!  You should still try to log all the food you eat and liquids you drink each day as you work through the steps in developing your routine.  Once you have a built a routine of eating well where you understand what the calories you are eat look like then you will find that you don’t need to use a food log as much.  At this point you should start to notice that you are able to eyeball your serving sizes and nutritional data.  This typically happens after 4 to 6 weeks and is the moment when things really start to change!