How to keep a food and symptom diary that finds your triggers

A useful diary connects what goes in with how you feel after. Log these every day:

• Everything you eat and drink, including snacks, sauces, and drinks. Note rough portions.
• The time of each meal. Timing is often what links a food to a symptom.
• Symptoms, with a time and a severity, such as heartburn, bloating, or pain on a scale of 1 to 10.
• Bowel movements, using the Bristol stool scale (types 1 to 7), if you have IBS.
• Sleep, stress, and medication, since all three can change symptoms on their own.

Aim for at least two to four weeks. A single bad day can point at the wrong food. A pattern that repeats across weeks is much more likely to be real. If you are working through the reintroduction phase of a low FODMAP diet, keep logging throughout it.

Look for foods that keep appearing before your worst days.

• Reflux usually follows within minutes to a few hours of eating, and is often worse lying down.
• IBS symptoms can follow within hours, and sometimes the next day, so look back further than your last meal.
• Watch for confounders. A late, large meal on a stressful day with little sleep can flare you even if no single food is the cause.

For the foods worth watching first, see our guides to GERD trigger foods and IBS trigger foods.

A diary gives your doctor or dietitian facts instead of memories. Bring a short summary: your most common symptoms, how often they happen, the foods you suspect, and anything you have already tried.

This article is general information, not medical advice. See a doctor promptly for blood in your stool, trouble swallowing, unexplained weight loss, or persistent vomiting.