Food journaling is just one of the many types of journals that can be helpful on your personal growth journey. And food journaling prompts are a great way to start a guided journal practice and to dive deeper into the topic of mindful eating.
You can also use a food journal to track your eating habits, do meal planning, and work through any related topics like body image, emotional eating, and other physical health topics. Journaling, especially mindful eating journaling, is a way we can process our relationship with food.
Food journaling & exploring our relationships with food
For many of us, our relationship with food is a complicated relationship. One characterized over time by fad dieting, negative thoughts about body image, fluctuations in our weight, whether weight loss or weight gain, inherited beliefs and habits about food from family, eating disorders, and even stress or emotional eating. Mindful eating is not just about food choices or food rules. There is often a lot more that we have to understand about ourselves and our bodies in order to have a healthy relationship with food.
Using food writing prompts in our journaling routines helps us start to understand what changes we need to make and what goals we need to set in order to better care for ourselves - both physically, emotionally, and mentally in relation to food.
22 Food Journaling Prompts for Mindful Eating
As you start to process what it looks like to eat intuitively and mindfully for your body, try using these food journaling prompts. They can help us peel back more layers of the onion when it comes to our relationships with food. Tackle one prompt at a time, then take time to reflect.
- In what ways do you feel “stuck” or “trapped” when it comes to food and eating?
- How do your eating habits affect your daily life, social life, relationships, and mood?
- What was your relationship with food like growing up?
- Have you ever gone through periods of drastic weight loss or weight gain? What was that like?
- Describe a time when you felt you were at your “healthiest” or “best” regarding food?
- What do you wish your relationship with food looked like right now?
- What does the phrase “food freedom” mean to you? What would it look like to have food freedom for you?
- Do you feel like you have a healthy relationship with food and eating? What would healthy look like to you?
- What changes do you intuitively know you need to make about your eating habits?
- What knowledge do you feel like you lack when it comes to understanding nutrition and healthy eating?
- What do you think or say to yourself when you look in the mirror and/or try on new clothes?
- How does your relationship with food affect your view of yourself and your body?
- Do you use food and drinking to de-stress? Why or why not?
- What is keeping you from changing your eating habits? List your top 3 barriers.
- How often are you fully satisfied after you eat?
- What does the phrase “mindful eating” mean to you? What would it mean to you to make more mindful choices regarding food and eating?
- Is food more of a means to an end OR is it something you use for enjoyment and pleasure? A mix of both? Explain.
- Have you ever met with a registered dietitian? How was that experience? What are some possible benefits of meeting with one?
- Who is someone in your life that you think has a “healthy relationship” with food? What does that look like?
- How is your relationship with food different when you’ve been in a physically healthy versus unhealthy season of life?
- Does your fitness routine influence your food choices? How so?
- What emotions do you have when you think of planning your meals, buying groceries, cooking?
If you liked our food journaling prompts, let us know in the comments below!
And check out Silk+Sonder blog for more resources like these.