The protein target that's tracked every day hits. The protein target that exists as a goal but isn't logged misses more days than it hits, without the person knowing how many. The same applies to caloric targets and hydration. The food diary isn't a record of moral performance — it's the data that connects intentions to outcomes.
Eight Fields, Complete Intake Record
What, When, Type, Details, Calories, Fluid Volume, Protein, and Date — the template is minimal by design, covering the three macronutrient-adjacent targets that most dietary tracking actually requires.
What is the food or drink item. When is the meal time. Type classifies the entry — meal, snack, supplement, beverage — which enables filtering by entry type to see snacking patterns separate from planned meals. Details handles the composition information that What alone doesn't capture: the specific cuts, preparation method, portion size, or brand information that affects the caloric and protein calculation.
Calories is the energy entry. The total accumulated across a day's entries produces the caloric balance against whatever target is being maintained. Weight management, performance nutrition, medical dietary management — the caloric baseline applies across all of them.
Protein in grams is the macronutrient field. For strength training populations, recovery nutrition, older adults managing sarcopenia risk, or medical nutrition support protocols, protein target tracking is often more clinically meaningful than total calorie tracking. Having protein as a structured field rather than extracted from a total macronutrient entry means the protein total accumulates automatically across all entries.
Fluid Volume in millilitres tracks hydration separately from caloric intake. Eight glasses is a rough approximation; 2,500ml of logged fluid intake is a number. For people managing hydration for medical reasons — kidney stone prevention, heat exposure, athletic performance — the volumetric record is the one that matters.
The diary becomes useful as pattern data after ten to fourteen days of consistent entries. A week of food logs where the protein target was missed on every evening that included alcohol consumption, or where fluid intake consistently dropped to 60% of target on high-activity days, is information that nutritional adjustments are built on.