Printable Food and Symptom Diary
If certain meals seem to leave you bloated, tired or uncomfortable, a food and symptom diary helps you find out for sure. Write down what you eat and how you feel afterward, and after a few weeks the patterns start to show. Your notes also make it easier to talk with your doctor or a dietitian about what is going on. Choose a paperback diary you write in or a fillable PDF you can type into on your phone, tablet or computer.
Paperback: Food & Symptom Diary
A 90-day meal tracker to see how food affects how you feel. It is sold as a paperback on Amazon and as a lay-flat, coil-bound edition on Lulu that stays open on the kitchen counter.
Fillable PDF: Food & Symptom Diary (90 days)
Type your meals into the big boxes, tick your symptoms and tap the circles, no printer needed. The 138-page PDF has 90 undated daily pages, each with a Quick Check for symptoms, energy, stress, sleep, water and bowel movements; boxes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, each with a "how I felt after" row; and a symptom log. It also includes 13 weekly check-ins, 3 monthly reviews, a 90-day pattern summary, a 10-page meal and snack idea guide, a list of commonly reported food triggers and pages for doctor or dietitian visits. You get US Letter and A4 versions.
Tips for keeping a food and symptom diary
Write meals down right after you eat. Details are easy to forget by evening.
Include drinks, snacks and sauces, not just main meals.
Note how you feel 1 to 3 hours later, since reactions are not always immediate.
Give it a few weeks before drawing conclusions. One bad day is not a pattern.
Talk with your doctor or a dietitian before cutting out whole food groups.
Where to get it
Lay-flat coil-bound edition on Lulu
Made by Larry Kniejski, LK Books. These trackers are for personal record keeping only. They are not medical advice, and they do not diagnose or treat any condition. Talk to your doctor about your health. In a medical emergency, call 911.