A Four Day Food Diary. I Dare You.

I am not the food police, but the rules are simple: carry the Diary with you for four days, write down everything you eat and drink (and, I mean everything), and write down any physical or emotional symptoms you have during the day at the time that they occur. Be truthful – eat what you would normally eat. Bring the paper back with you to your next visit. It's not a test. You're not being judged based on your answers. And to make this fair, let's level the playing field - I admit that I just had a strawberry and chocolate panini for lunch today – it was great. I'm not looking for perfection, just looking for answers.

These are the first instructions I give to every new patient that comes to my office. I hand them a welcome packet, complete with their brand-spanking-new Diet Diary. Some people dive whole- heartedly into the exercise, while others avoid doing it until I've pestered them into complying. But, universally, the diary – or, more appropriately, the connections discovered by keeping one - helps make my patients better.

Very often, there are patterns and connections that can be made between what we eat and how we feel. It often takes a Diet Diary to help establish the specific connections that affect each individual. One person may eat an egg and need to take a nap fifteen minutes later, while another person starts having a migraine shortly after finishing that second cup of coffee. What food is benign to one person's body may highly offend another. I can personally plan on palpitations about 20 minutes after eating anything containing vinegar. Sometimes, it's not the food itself that causes a problem, but food additives, preservatives, or combinations (next assignment: Label Reading!).

It is widely recognized that our digestion, from the food we eat to the way our body processes and disposes of it, influences so many physiologic functions – including our immune responses, mental/emotional states, and disease progression or healing. Specific to each person is the way in which the body reacts to different foods. Not all food reactions are considered food allergies, which are typically classified by specific immune reactions that tend to become more severe with each exposure. Sometimes, there are immune responses to foods that are not so immediate or severe, but none the less cause symptoms – some of which are subtle enough or timed far enough from actual ingestion of the food that we miss the connection. These are considered food sensitivities . Joint pain, headaches, fatigue, sinus congestion, or worsening of an already-established disorder can occur with sensitivity to food. Once these relationships are identified and the food or food group is eliminated, patients often notice relief within a relatively short period of time.

So I challenge you: Try a Diet Diary. Take four days to be brutally honest about everything you ingest. Write it down, and record any physical, mental, or emotional symptoms you have – note your fatigue, your aches, your irritability, your sleep patterns, anything. After four days, look at your list and see if you can establish a pattern. If you are unsure of which foods are “offending” to you, speak to a health care provider trained to identify these food reactions or research elimination diets to try for yourself. I promise you, you'll be amazed.