How to keep a food and symptom diary that tells you something
Updated 29 October 2026
Record what you ate, when, and how you felt two to four hours later, every day for at least two weeks. Add sleep, stress and your cycle in a word each. Keep each entry under a minute so you keep going. Then look for foods or times that come before symptoms most of the time, and test one at a time.
Why most diaries fail
They ask for too much. Weighing food, rating ten symptoms and photographing every plate works for four days, then stops. A diary only helps if it covers enough days for the same meal to come up several times.
The other failure is never reading it. Weeks of notes do nothing until somebody looks for the repeats.
The minimum that works
| Record | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What you ate and drank | The obvious half. Rough amounts are enough. |
| The time | When you eat can matter more than what. Late meals are a common cause of bloating. |
| How you felt 2 to 4 hours later | Most food reactions show up in this window, and some take longer. |
| Sleep, stress, cycle | One word each. They change how the same meal sits on different days. |
Reading it
Give it two weeks
You need each suspect to come up several times. Earlier patterns are usually coincidence.
Look for repeats, not one-offs
A food that comes before symptoms four times out of five is worth testing. Once out of five is not.
Test one change
Leave out one food, or move one meal earlier, for a week. Then bring it back and see if the symptom comes back too.
Take it to a professional
If the diary shows a lot of foods, or symptoms that do not follow food at all, it is exactly what a GP or dietitian will want to see.
Doing it in Ojafi
Ojafi is a food and symptom diary built to be read, not just kept. You log a meal and how it sat. The iPhone app, in review now, looks for the meals and times that keep coming before a bad day and says what it found in plain words, including the foods that turned out fine. The journal works in your browser today.
Questions people also ask
- How long should I keep a food diary?
- At least two weeks, ideally three or four. Fewer days rarely give a food enough repeats to show a pattern.
- What is the best app for a food and symptom diary?
- It depends on what you want from it. mySymptoms and Bowelle are established diaries, Monash FODMAP is the reference for the low FODMAP diet, and Ojafi reads your diary for you and tells you which foods are fine. Our comparison covers them.
- Should I write down everything I eat?
- Everything you can, including drinks, gum and snacks. Rough amounts are fine. Leaving out small things is the usual reason a diary misses the cause.
One size fits nobody.
Ojafi starts from your tastes, your routine and how food sits with you. Free to start, no card needed.
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Ojafi gives general food guidance. It is not medical advice and does not diagnose or treat any condition. See our medical disclaimer.