HSOS #3: Is Food Tracking Right for You?

In this episode of Her Season of Strength, Kim Duffy dives into the benefits of food journaling for women over 40—and why it’s often the first step she takes with her clients. She breaks down what tracking actually is, how to get started without obsession, and how to eventually transition into mindful eating and moderation. Kim also shares how this approach is built into her Fit After 50 Plus program starting Sept. 29, including exclusive early bird perks before August 24.

Let’s talk.

Welcome to Her Season of Strength—where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy—registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman when it comes to aging like you mean it.

This show isn’t about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles. It’s about building real strength—physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I’ll share straight-talking nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies, and conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin once again.

Menopause is not an ending, it is only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

📝Here are a few things I cover:

• What food journaling and tracking actually is
• Why tracking is often the first step for her clients
• What to track: food, symptoms, protein, mood, digestion
• Real-life tips to make food journaling doable and not overwhelming
• Why food tracking isn’t forever and when to stop
• Who should not track food (disordered eating history, etc.)
• How Fit After 50 Plus incorporates both tracking and the transition to mindfulness and moderation

Links & resources for this episode:

Fit After 50 Plus Program: 8-Week Nutrition Coaching & Fitness Program for women 50+.

Free cheat sheet: "20 Tips to Crushing Menopause

Join my free weekly newsletter list and get a new high protein recipe sent to your inbox every Thursday.

Find me on social media: Instagram I Facebook I Tiktok

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to her season of Strength, where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy, registered dietician, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman. When it comes to aging like you mean it, this show isn't about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles.

It's about building real strength, physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I'll share straight talking, nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies. And conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin. Once again, menopause isn't an ending. It's only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

Welcome to her season of strength. All of you beautiful people. Thank you for just taking a minute out of your day to listen. Before I dive into today's topic, I just wanted to send a shout out to all those who are affected directly by the fires burning in California and Canada or elsewhere. Um, living up here in Minnesota where we have daily air quality alerts [00:01:00] because of the fires burning up in Canada, I can only imagine what it's like being even closer to those fires being in danger of losing your homes or how it can affect your health, especially those with breathing or lung problems.

So I'm sending my thoughts and virtual hugs to all of you for today's topic. I wanna start out with typically one of the first steps I ask the majority of my nutrition coaching clients to take for me, and that. Is food tracking before you unfollow me or stop listening, I get it. Tracking or journaling, what you're eating is work and it can be stressful, and you worry.

What will someone else think about what you are eating? It's like airing out all your dirty laundry. It's not for everybody, but hear me out. I wanna take a dive into what it is, but more importantly, why it might be helpful for you and why it's not something you need to do forever. As well as long-term strategy that you can progress to.

So first of all, let's chat a bit about, you know, what, what the heck is food journaling or [00:02:00] tracking. So it's basically just a tool to become more aware of what, when and how you're eating. It helps you to notice those patterns and how food affects your energy, your mood, and your digestion. It can be as simple or as detailed as you want.

You can write it in a notebook or you can use an app. All my clients. Journal their intake on my, my app called Practice Better. But that's just so that I can, I can really look, I can analyze exactly what they're eating, um, and I can see it all. It's super easy. Whereas, you know, MyFitnessPal and other things, I'm gonna have to download the, the, uh, the journals.

But I've done, I've done kind of all those, but some of the popular apps are gonna be like chronometer. MyFitnessPal is a common one. What's nice about that is I love the apps that you can you can put on your phone and then you can just use your camera. If you have a food label, you can just download it straight into your food journal.

It does make it really easy anytime you [00:03:00] have a label or a bar. Um, some other apps are eight, lose It and Carb Manager. Um, really I have no preference. I, I guess MyFitnessPal is one that I am the most familiar with and it has a huge database, which I think can be the, the most challenging piece of journaling is, is that.

You know, everything isn't always in there that you are eating, you know, so if it comes back saying that, that they can't find that food and you have to enter everything in by hand, that's kind of a pain in the rear. So what's nice about food tracking is it, it doesn't require. Calorie counting per se, but you can track what feels most useful to your goals.

So you know, maybe you're only tracking protein, maybe you're only tracking like your gastrointestinal symptoms. Maybe you're tracking your timing of meals and kind of what you're eating. I would say the grand majority of my clients, we are looking specifically at their macronutrient balance and [00:04:00] protein is a large piece of that.

Just, just looking at kind of what are their meals balanced? You know, are you having a tiny little breakfast and a little bigger lunch and then you're having this giant dinner in the evening? Some of the, it's just can be really eye-opening for me. Um, so why the heck do I have my clients do this?

So when I say, you know, when, when they're telling me I'm doing everything right or I eat really healthy, I don't understand what's going on. It can just really be eyeopening for me because I don't, you know, most of these people, I don't know, 'em, never met 'em before and they're coming to me to, um, you know, whether it's for weight loss or, or maybe it's gastrointestinal type issues that they're having.

They don't understand is it food allergies or intolerances? Is it, um, you know, maybe they wanna lower their cholesterol or decrease their blood sugars. So it just really, it helps me to understand what are their usual routines, their patterns, what are their usual go-to foods? How [00:05:00] much are they, you know, making things at home versus eating out or ordering out.

Um, I, I mean, I can't tell you how many women I work with come in saying, you know, I eat healthy. I don't understand why I'm gaining weight, or I don't understand why I have these crazy, awful cravings in the evenings and I can't stop eating right up to the po I, you know, I go to bed. Or you know, maybe they see their, in their cholesterol or their blood sugars are increasing.

After they start, journaling what they're actually putting into their mouths, and we talk about kind of how to make those small, consistent changes without getting rid of everything they love. It opens up a whole new world because tracking helps to reveal those patterns, those habits and those blind spots because you know what, you can't change what you don't see.

So if you are tracking, what, what exactly are you tracking and how can you beginning, so how, how can you begin? So mostly you're gonna be tracking food and drink, right? So everything you are consuming, that's [00:06:00] gonna be, you know, the creamer you put in your coffee, that's gonna be the size of wine that you're drinking in the evening.

Even when you're snacking, when you come home from work, you know, and you're. Having a few crackers or, you know, you're popping things into your mouth. Sometimes you, we, we don't think about those things, 'cause when you, you know, you're standing up and eating it over the, um, sink, it's, uh, it doesn't count, right?

I also have people track water intake or fluid intake energy levels any kind of digestion symptoms, so bowel movements symptoms, you know, maybe poor sleep, maybe. Um. Irritability, high stress levels. Absolutely. Um, emotional type eating moods. These are all really helpful things to, to track because boy, they can really, um, they can really tell us a lot about, um, why you're, you're choosing the foods you're choosing, or you know, why you're finding that you're, you [00:07:00] know, that you're hungry, more hungry one day over the other.

So some ways to get started is first of all, not looking at it like, oh, I need to do this. Seven days a week consistently. I, I, um, need to track every little thing I'm consuming. Sometimes that can really seem overwhelming for some people, so some people I'll just have them. Well, let's look at tracking one or two days during the week just to get started.

Just to get a feel for, oh, this is what we do. I need to, you know, this, this is how I use this app. You get familiar with the app, you get familiar with the database. Maybe you start. Actually putting in some, some of your favorite recipes that you're, that you're making into the app, so that it's super easy to track those foods that might be a little bit more specialized and not in the database.

I think the key is that you, you should do it as you go. So rather than just getting to the end of the day and then having to think through everything you ate during the day, [00:08:00] first of all, I think you can miss a lot of things that way. Um, but I also think that can be a little overwhelming, whereas if you're just doing it kind of as you go.

Might be a little bit more doable and just don't overthink it. You know? I think so many people will be like, oh, I don't want you to see that I ate that candy bar, or I ate that ice cream. And I'm like, I don't care. I mean, these are real foods. These are foods that, that everybody enjoys and I absolutely am not telling you to no longer en enjoy those foods that you like.

I am just. Purely an observer, and I'm just trying to get a big picture view of what you're consuming and how it could be affecting how you feel and your bodies and your specific health and wellness goals. So it is just. A tool. Absolutely. It is not a judgment and I don't feel like there should be any guilt or shame or any of those things around it.

I am, I am not a judge here. I am just, I am just trying to give you tools [00:09:00] to be able to make some changes that could potentially positively in influence, um, your health and wellness and help you to reach your goals. So tracking should not be a forever thing. There are women who are like I have tracked for, you know, 50 years everything that I put in my mouth.

And that can become a problem that, that can be an indicator that, you know, you don't have a good relationship with food or you know, something that we need to look in a little deeper and, and definitely something that we need to try to wean you off of and teach you some other skills or tools to use.

In place of it. So it should be a short-term tool, but it's gonna provide you with long-term awareness. It's gonna help you to build that hunger and fullness radar, to, um, eventually kind of shift to that more mindful eating and food freedom. That is my ultimate goal. So who are people that should [00:10:00] not be tracking their food?

I would say anyone with a history of disordered eating or eating disorders. If you find that it becomes obsessive or overly stressful, it's time to stop. That it, it's just, that's not worth it. And focus instead on just building those habits and that awareness through, you know, even just looking at your plate.

And listening to your body and its hunger and fullness cues, and I'm gonna talk here in just a minute about some, some ways to move on or to wean off of the tracking specifically. But just remember, you know, it's not, tracking is not about control, it's about clarity. You know, you're learning what your body, you know, you're learning more about your body and you're learning more about what it needs and how to fuel it.

For energy and for health. So this is kind of, we work on this in my eight week signature program called FIT After 50 plus. It's [00:11:00] actually a nutrition coaching and fitness program. Um, we're kicking it off September 29th, so our next, uh, cohorts coming up. But inside the program I have all of the participants start with food journaling, not as a rule book, but as a reflection tool.

You are gonna track, you know, not just what you eat, but how you feel. And it may helps me to tailor your nutrition and your movement plan to your unique needs. So, just like we talked about today, we don't track forever. So as you begin to understand your patterns, I teach you how to shift into that mindful eating, that balanced plate building, and intentional moderation so you can really sustain your progress without needing to log every single bite.

I think the most challenging part of journaling is actually staying consistent with it for a bit. You know, you can start really strong and feel really motivated, but if you're the only one looking at it or if you aren't seeing any progress. Um, you can lose that motivation and quit. So in Fit, after 50, we do [00:12:00] weekly journal reviews and feedback in real time, so you can make those easy substitutions and modifications, which can really help you to see success.

So if anyone out there is looking for some guidance and accountability kind of around your nutrition or fitness, you can get on the interest list now to receive the early bird pricing and bonuses. Um, but the interest list does close on August 24th in just a few weeks. So I'm gonna put the link in the show notes if you wanna check that out.

We start September 29th, but, um, now I, I wanna move on to specifically how you can wean off of tracking without undoing all the progress that you made while tracking. So, a way to transition more into the mindfulness and moderation is to start. Noticing your hunger and fullness cues throughout the day?

I think it's so easy for us to get away from actually feeling hungry, because we tend to eat before we get there. You know, we tend to be like, oh, yep, I have my meal at, you know, 8:00 AM and I have a snack at 10:00 AM and then I eat [00:13:00] lunch at 12, and then I have a snack at three, and then I have dinner at.

Six and I have a snack at eight or whatever. And we just kind of are eating more on routine rather than actually listening to our bodies and going, oh, do you know what? I'm hungry. I'm going to eat now. Um, and then not to mention, just when we are eating. To actually, stop when we feel content.

That doesn't mean we are eating until we are so full and we're uncomfortable because usually once we hit that point, we have, we have overshot and a lot of times we sit there and we get more full and more full and more full. Especially if you're somebody who eats quickly. You know, if you kind of inhale your.

Food and don't even think about what you've eaten, or you eat it so fast that like you finish that plate and you're like not truly feeling full yet, and as you sit there, you get more full and more full, right? You know, stopping and slowing [00:14:00] down. I love the three s's of intentional eating and that's what we learned in the Fit after 50 plus program is you sit down.

So that means, don't stand up at the sink eating your lunch. Don't you know, it does mean, you know, don't sit in front of the television or in front of the computer or in front of, you know, your phone or whatever, but to actually sit down at the table, sit down somewhere where you can just focus on eating and enjoying that meal.

Second S is slow down. Don't inhale it. You know, whether, whether you're setting your fork down after each a bite, maybe you're wiping your mouth with a napkin, maybe you're Dr. You know, grabbing a sip of water between each bite. Anything you can do to slow down, chew your food slowly, and actually think about what you're eating.

I mean, how many times have you eaten a meal and it's just like you get done with it and you're like, did I even [00:15:00] taste that? I mean, maybe you were so starving hungry, you just literally inhaled it. Or you were, eating it while you were driving in the car, or you were eating it while you were in a work meeting, or you, you know, you were multitasking, you were doing 10 different things and you weren't actually thinking about what you were eating.

So slow it down. The third S is savor. Actually taste the food. Think about, you know, what are the flavors in this? What are the textures in this? What does it smell like? What does it look like? Actually pay attention to what you are consuming. It's just basically that's just eating with intention actually, you know, rather than, you know.

Multitasking, doing a million different things. Actually thinking about what you're eating and, and, um, enjoying the food that you're eating, check in with how that food makes you feel. Not just physically, but emotionally, especially afterwards. I think sometimes that can really be, you know, maybe if you're like, oh, I [00:16:00] really want that burger and fries and that, you know, that Coke or whatever from McDonald's afterwards, I want you to think about like, how did that make you feel?

Did it give you energy initially? And then did that energy level drop off, an hour or two later, you know what foods actually make you feel stronger and give you kind of that longer lasting energy. And it's probably gonna be those foods that have a good protein source maybe are, full of fiber.

With those veggies or those antioxidants. But it's like sometimes, you know, just thinking about how this food, you know, affects you, you know, maybe it makes you feel sluggish, maybe it makes you feel tired. Maybe it makes you, you know, feel kind of yucky. But thinking about how that food makes you feel. And then give yourself permission to enjoy food without guilt or obsession.

If you wanna have some ice cream, have some darn ice cream and enjoy it. [00:17:00] Savor it, taste it, you know, sit down with a serving of it and be mindful of that. Or go to Dairy Queen, or go to wherever you want and actually get. Just get one, one single serving of it so that you can sit there, you can enjoy it.

Yep. I had that. And then it's not, you know, sitting in your house or sitting in your freezer where you're like, I'm gonna have it again and again and again. Right. But enjoy that food. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a sweet treat or, you know, going out to dinner. Going out to a nice restaurant, enjoy that food and stop, you know, shaming yourself.

Stop giving yourself, making yourself feel guilty because that almost perpetuates that poor relationship with food. Ask yourself, you know, what am I truly hungry for? What does my body need today? Sometimes that can be helpful. You, you just have to truly listen. You know, if your body is every day hungry for pizza then maybe, uh.

Maybe we need to try to fuel it with foods [00:18:00] that that will actually, you know, give an energy, make it feel a little better. So let's just kind of go over what we've been talking about. So remember, tracking isn't about perfection. It's just about awareness. You know, you're not alone if you find yourself tracking and on and off, for years and years and years.

Because it's not, it's not an easy habit to, to stick with, but it is one that can be eye-opening, I think, especially if you have maybe a professional who is looking at it and helping you to just see some big picture views and make some small changes. It's not about judgment. It's not about, you know, making you feel bad for what you're eating, but more about how can we make these small change or these modifications to make your, what you're consuming fuel your body better and help, you know, help you towards those goals that you're shooting for when it comes to your health and your wellness [00:19:00] and how you feel.

You know, we need that clarity tracking can help to give us that clarity before we can make some of those changes. So I'd love to, you know, if, if any of you track on a regular basis, um, or just started tracking after we're talking today, I'd love to know what you learned or what surprised you about what you're eating.

You know, dm me on Instagram or Facebook or tag me in your stories if you are journal, you know, journaling or tracking. Don't forget to rate, review, and share this episode if it helped you. And remember, this is about progress over perfection. We're in this for the long haul, and this is your season of strength.

Have a fantastic day.