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The Best Food Journals of 2025
Written By Review Team at the Kitchen Institute
Many Americans are overweight or obese, putting them at risk for health issues such as high cholesterol, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and stroke. Thanks to weight loss programs, however, the risk of developing these issues can be reduced significantly. But staying consistent in your weight loss journey can be challenging. That’s where the value of a food journal comes in.
A food journal or diary helps you track your eating habits, calorie count, and other food-related information. Regularly writing down all this information in an organized space can help you stay on track with your diet and fitness goals.
Since the market is saturated with so many good food journals, finding the one that suits your needs can be tricky. So, to help you in your fitness journey, we’ve rounded up and reviewed some of the finest food journals of 2025, along with a brief buyer’s guide.
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Comparing the Top Food Journal of 2025
Healthier You Food Journal
Best Overall
The Healthier You Food Journal is a 90-day guided journal to track your food intake and fitness progress. With its straightforward approach, you can record all the essential information on a single page. That includes daily meals, hydration, sleep, exercise, and mood.
Besides recording your daily food habits, this guided journal also encourages monthly check-ins to reflect on your progress and set your goals for the next month. This food journal has enough pages for tracking your activity over three months. Thanks to its affordability and ease of use, this option is the top product on our list.
Clever Fox Food Journal
Most Colors
If you want to track your food intake in a fun way, the Clever Fox Food Journal is a perfect choice. Available in 15 colors, this bright and eye-catching food journal has a textured cover that offers a fresh view for you to record your eating habits. With its thoughtfully designed layout, you get a daily food log, weekly goal-setting section, monthly calendar, and top goals page.
This aesthetically pleasing option lets you track your eating habits for up to six months. The high-quality, no-bleed paper makes writing a pleasure. Besides, the funky stickers that come with this journal can help you add a touch of color and fun to the pages.
Peter Pauper Press Food Journal
Budget-Friendly
The Peter Pauper Press Daily Food Journal is an affordable and pocket-friendly product. It is a straightforward, no-nonsense journal with enough room to track your calories, exercise, and daily water consumption. You can easily use this option to keep track of your diet for up to three months.
This food diary features an elastic band, so everything stays neatly in place. It also has a ribbon bookmark to easily revisit the page you’re writing on. The outer cover band comes off easily if you want your food journal to look discreet.
Hello New Me Food Journal
Compact Size
The Hello New Me Food Journal is a thorough pick for tracking your eating habits and activities for 90 days. It is a simple food diary that helps you stay organized in your weight loss journey by documenting everything from food consumption to water intake and sleep schedule. You can also track your mood and how it affects your eating habits.
Its lightweight and compact size make it easier to carry during your day and even while traveling, so you can track your food intake wherever and whenever you want. This food journal lets you record everything related to your fitness and diet with three months worth of pages.
Boxclever Press Food Journal
Best Design
The Boxclever Press Food Journal is an undated notebook to track your meals and exercise for 13 weeks. This option has an attractive design with different types of pages to record your weight, moods, milestones, and goals. You can use it to foster healthy eating habits by keeping a thorough record of your daily diet, water intake, and calorie count.
With the weekly summary pages in this food diary, you can reflect on your journey to reward yourself for your achievements. The body measurement and weight loss trackers can also keep you motivated to achieve your fitness goals.
Buying Guide: Food Journals
People who want to watch their weight or change their food habits can greatly benefit from using a food journal. Since you can find all sorts of shapes, colors, sizes, and styles of journals on the market, it can be hard to pick one that’s ideal for you. So, we created this detailed buying guide to help you determine which food journal is right for your needs.
What Types of Food Journals Are Available?
Structured written journals
Structured food journals have proper sections and segments for everything from tracking your calorie intake to monitoring your blood sugar levels. Each one varies in how detailed it is about your entire diet and fitness journey. Some may offer trackable metrics, while others don’t.
Unstructured written journals
These are like regular diaries without proper sectioning. You can manually record your calories and eating habits without following any particular system. These journals don’t have premade sections, so you can record everything as you see fit.
Factors To Consider When Buying a Food Journal
Material
Look for a journal made with high-quality materials. Besides the outer cover’s sturdiness, you should look at paper quality too. You won’t enjoy writing in a journal that has cheap and low-quality paper since the ink will bleed right through, making a mess of your writing.
Size
When you’re tracking your diet, you should record everything you eat throughout the day. If the journal is heavy and bulky, you won’t be able to fit it in your bag and may end up having an incomplete calorie count or other missing information. So, the journal should be compact and lightweight enough to carry around easily and use on the go.
Entry space
A food diary should have lots of pages and enough writing space to accurately document your eating habits. If the entry space is insufficient, you won’t be able to track your meals correctly, so your diet and fitness goals may not be met as efficiently.
Other Features To Look For in Food Journals
Helpful guidance
Many food journals have great diet tips, exercise suggestions, and tracking strategies. These guidelines can help you stay focused on your goals and keep you motivated with new tips and tricks to try every day.
Time frame
How long your journal will last depends on its time frame. Food journals can range from a month to a year of documenting your food habits. Typically, a food journal will record your food-related information for three or six months. If you’re following a particular weight loss program, ensure the journal has enough pages to track your entire journey.
Trackable metrics
Some food journals also provide various metrics you can track during your fitness journey. For instance, you can track the number of steps you’ve taken or the weight you’ve lost. Similarly, some journals also have space for you to track full workouts.
What Are the Key Components of a Food Journal?
Date
Your food journal should have a date section so you can note the day of the week to track what you eat and on what day. This allows you to compare your weekday and weekend food intake.
Meal designation
A meal designation, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, makes it easier to document your meals. You can also record the time you eat your meals to be consistent.
Food description
Your food journal should have a descriptive section where you can list everything you eat in detail. It should have enough space to write about the calorie count, serving size, preparation methods, ingredients, and more.
Notes
Your notes are also an essential part of keeping a food journal. The notes section in a journal offers you enough space to document your feelings before and after a meal. This section can help identify the times when you’re more prone to unplanned eating, like late-night snacks.
People Also Asked
Are food journals effective?
Yes, food journals can be very effective tools to understand your eating habits, identify good and bad food consumption, and change your behavior.
How do I use a food journal?
Using a food journal is easy; you can log foods before or after eating them. You can also mention where you’re eating and how you feel when you eat a particular food item. If you miss a meal or eat more than what you eat regularly, you should also mention it in the journal.
Can I track my calories using a food journal?
Yes, you can track your calories with a food journal. To calculate the correct calorie count, you need to know the serving size for each meal you eat and then jot down the corresponding number of calories in your journal.
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