Scientist Lord Kelvin and business management expert Peter Drucker felt the same way about tracking results: if you can't measure it, you can't improve it.
Also, who hasn't had a client return and say "I haven't had any progress" only to find they've improved more than they thought?
Of course, clients aren't liars. We're all just poor judges of our own progress. That's why measurement is crucial to success in any lifestyle improvement effort.
Enter journals: a practitioner's bread and butter for client accountability and tracking.
Objective, and subjective tracking in journal form helps clients stick to their goals, plain and simple. It gives clients a sense of immediate feedback and progress, giving them accountability for their own health journey. For practitioners, you have a window into how your client is progressing, and if things are going off the rails, you can tweak their plan or add some coaching as needed.
We all know the undeniable linkage between diet and mental health (here's a refresher on the latest dietary interventions for mood and cognitive disorders). So, having your clients and patients track their nutrition can help them reach their goals by drawing links between their feelings and their food intake.
Also, water intake, exercise, and sleep all contribute to mental health, and so a whole-person integrative mental health plan includes monitoring these lifestyle changes.
The food & mood journal has a food database that includes 600,000+ food and beverages, including 140,000+ restaurant items. The journal is a great tool to use with clients to increase their awareness and engagement, keep them motivated, and help you gain insight into their nutrient intake and mood in relation to the foods they are eating.
You can choose to set personalized targets for your clients to help them with their goals. For example, you can set a daily water intake or nutrient consumption goal. Targets are a great way to keep track of a client's progress and give them direction on what to aim for each day. Journal targets can also give clients self-accountability because they can observe their own progress toward achieving these set goals and targets.
Without ever leaving Practice Better, your clients can record their food, mood, and water intake.
Journal targets are more than just numbers; they're a strategic approach to health management. By setting specific goals for nutrient intake, hydration, weight management, activity levels, and sleep, practitioners can provide a structured path for clients to achieve their wellness objectives. This feature not only tracks progress but also fosters a sense of accomplishment and motivation.
Learn how easy it is to set journal targets to keep your clients reaching for their and your goals.
This step-by-step video guide offers valuable insights and practical tips for making the most of this feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmvozKM6NmA
Options for food tracking that you can provide to your clients include:
By default, clients using the food database will be shown the nutritional information unless you specify otherwise in your settings. This allows them to easily keep track of their nutrient targets as nutrient totals are added automatically. Clients entering Free Form entries can write what they ate in their own words. This generates an optional estimated nutritional breakdown based on the client’s description of the food they ate.
For your clients' convenience, foods they eat regularly or on rotation can easily be copied directly from previous days.
Clients can also add recipes you've assigned them from That Clean Life in just a click or two, so long as you've integrated your software.
If you prefer not to show clients nutrient details, you can disable this on a client-by-client or account level. This would allow your clients to continue to enter their food information without them seeing any caloric or nutritional information while still keeping it visible to you in your Practitioner Portal.
After clients input their food information, they can optionally record the location of their meal, their hunger levels before and after eating, and their mood before and after eating. These added details are great for tracking symptoms and progress and providing clients with more accurate feedback based on their mood entries.
To keep your clients motivated and engaged, you can post comments or use emojis on their journal entries. This is a great way to reinforce a good food choice or give them feedback on something they should change up. No more need to wait until your next session!
Want to incorporate journals into your practice or take your clients' journals online and review them in real-time? Learn more about how a modern EHR can help your clients reach their goals through journaling.
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published on October 26, 2023, and has been edited for accuracy and comprehensiveness.]
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