Logging what you eat and how you feel afterward is one way to keep track of potential food triggers while also ensuring that you’re getting enough essential nutrients.

When you have a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like ulcerative colitis (UC), what you eat, how often you eat, and how much you eat can all affect your symptoms and overall health.

Not only might certain foods aggravate symptoms, but changes in your digestive tract can affect how well you absorb nutrients. In fact, 75% of people with active IBD experience protein-energy malnutrition, a deficiency in how much protein and calories you take in.

Keeping a food diary is a great way to track how your diet relates to your daily life with UC. It can also be an invaluable tool for your doctor when it comes to creating a successful UC management plan.

You can keep this log any way you’d like — pen and paper, notes on your phone, or through tracking apps. Here’s an idea of what key information to include.

A big reason to keep a UC food diary is to help you understand how certain foods may affect your symptoms.

First things first: Write down your symptoms throughout the day. Start by logging how you feel when you wake up. Then keep track of how those symptoms change throughout the day after eating and doing other activities.

While there’s no specific food that’s been proven to cause or worsen the progression on UC, certain foods may aggravate symptoms for some people. These foods are called “triggers,” and they can be different for everyone.

Common foods and drinks that can trigger UC symptoms include:

  • alcohol
  • caffeinated items
  • dairy products
  • fatty, greasy, or fried foods
  • high fiber foods
  • spicy foods
  • sugary foods and drinks
  • artificial sweeteners

Writing down what you eat each day, along with your symptoms, can help you notice patterns. If you’re experiencing a symptom flare, look back to see if you’ve logged any particular foods when your symptoms are at their worst.

Logging everything you eat and drink throughout eat day can also provide insight into your overall nutritional profile. Your body needs a variety of nutrients to function properly. Tracking each food item can help you identify whether you’re missing out on any major food groups.

Many diet apps will track your macro and micronutrient levels for you based on your food input.

If you experience a flare in UC symptoms without eating a known trigger food, portion size is another pattern to look for.

The more food you eat all at once, the longer it sits in your digestive system. When your large intestine is inflamed from UC, these long transit times may lead to more irritation.

You can keep track of portion sizes by weighing foods before you eat or by comparing them to similarly sized objects (like a deck of playing cards).

And don’t forget to log your fluid intake. Bloody diarrhea is one of the main symptoms of UC. It can cause dehydration, which can worsen symptoms like fatigue. Keeping track of how much you drank during the day can help you know if you’re properly hydrated.

Not everyone sticks to the standard three-meals-per-day rule or eats at consistent times — and that’s OK! But the timing of meals can affect your digestion and your digestive tract.

For example, if your symptoms flare every time you skip breakfast or worsen when you eat right before bed, you may want to consider adjusting your eating habits to help improve UC symptoms.

Sometimes a food is only a trigger when it comes from a certain store or restaurant or is prepared a certain way. For example, you may not react to a hamburger made at home, but every time you get a burger from your favorite fast food chain, your symptoms worsen.

Keeping track of where you ate can help you determine whether certain situations or preparation styles are best avoided.

Eating wards off hunger. But many people also eat when they’re stressed, bored, sad, or anxious.

Why you’re eating could be important if you experience a UC flare after a meal. Your gut and your brain are directly connected through a pathway called the gut-brain axis. As a result, what you eat can affect how you feel, and how you feel can affect your digestive tract.

In other words, it may not have been a specific food that triggered your symptoms — it may have been your emotions.

It’s also possible that negative feelings, like stress, could contribute to overeating or satisfying cravings that worsen UC symptoms.

Recognizing how you feel when you eat can help you find ways other than eating to cope with negative emotions.

Dietary supplements are not tested for efficacy or safety by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As a result, product quality and ingredients used can range drastically between brands — even if their labels make similar claims.

Including your supplement, its brand, dose, and time it was taken in your food diary can help you monitor your reactions. However, it’s not always possible to know if other ingredients (included on the label or not) might be aggravating your symptoms.

If you have UC, it’s important to talk with your doctor about any supplements you take to help ensure they’re not contributing to any of your symptoms.

While there’s no single food that’s been proven to cause or worsen the progression of UC, your eating habits can affect your symptoms.

Keeping a food diary is an easy way to gain some insight into how your diet may affect your daily life with UC. Start out with a pen and paper or go all-in with tracking apps — there’s no wrong choice!