Twenty free meal and food log templates for Microsoft Excel. Recording what you eat is most useful when you are looking for a pattern — which foods precede a symptom, what a week actually looks like, or what to show a doctor or dietitian who has asked you to keep a record.
A record, not a diet plan. This page is about how to keep a useful food log. It does not recommend what to eat, how much, or how many calories — those depend on your own health and circumstances and belong with a doctor or a registered dietitian. If logging food starts to feel distressing or preoccupying, that is worth raising with a healthcare professional.
- Templates20 layouts
- FormatMicrosoft Excel
- Opens inExcel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice
- CostFree, no signup
What are you keeping it for?
The purpose changes which columns matter, so it is worth deciding before you start.
| Reason | What to record |
|---|---|
| Food and symptom diary | Food, time eaten, symptoms, time symptoms appeared, severity. Commonly asked for when investigating digestive issues, headaches or suspected intolerances. |
| Working with a dietitian or doctor | Whatever they have asked for, usually over a set number of days including a weekend. Ask what they want before you start, not after. |
| Meal planning | Planned meals rather than eaten ones, used forward to write a shopping list. Pairs with a grocery list. |
| Training and sport | Meals alongside session times, to see how eating before and after training affects how you feel. |
| Childcare and care settings | What was offered, what was eaten, any reaction. Often a required record rather than an optional one. |
The templates
Twenty layouts, from simple daily meal grids to weekly sheets with space for notes and symptoms. Most are small, plain spreadsheets, which is what you want for something filled in every day.
Keeping a food and symptom diary
This is the use where a written log genuinely outperforms memory, and where the detail matters most. If a clinician has asked you to keep one, these points make the result far more usable.
- Record the time, not just the meal. The gap between eating and a symptom appearing is often the most informative thing in the whole log.
- Write it down as you go. Reconstructing a day in the evening loses the small things — a coffee, a handful of something, a sauce — and those are frequently what you are looking for.
- Include drinks and anything added. Dressings, spreads, sauces, milk in tea. Easy to omit and easy to overlook afterwards.
- Describe portions in plain terms. “A bowl”, “two slices”, “a handful”. Weighing is rarely necessary unless you have been asked to.
- Note the context. Where you ate, whether you were rushed, how you slept, stress, medication, menstrual cycle. Symptoms often correlate with something other than food, and without these columns you will never see it.
- Log the ordinary days too. A diary containing only bad days shows no contrast, and contrast is how patterns appear.
- Do not change what you eat while recording, unless told to. The point of a baseline diary is to capture a normal week.
Two weeks is a common length. One week often catches too little; a month is more than most people sustain accurately.
Taking it to an appointment
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Ask what they want first
How many days, whether weekends are needed, whether to include drinks and medication. A log kept in the wrong format usually has to be kept again.
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Keep it honest rather than tidy
A log edited to look sensible is worse than useless, because decisions get made from it. Clinicians are not grading you, and the unusual days are often the informative ones.
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Bring it printed
Easier to read across a desk and annotate together than a spreadsheet on a phone. Print two weeks on one or two pages if you can.
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Mark anything you noticed yourself
If you think you spotted a pattern, highlight it rather than relying on remembering during the appointment. It is a starting point for the conversation, not a conclusion.
Making it easy to keep up
- Put it where you eat. A printed sheet on the kitchen table gets filled in; one in a folder does not.
- Or keep it on your phone through Google Sheets, which is more practical for meals eaten out.
- Keep columns to the minimum you need. A log with twelve columns is abandoned in four days.
- Leave gaps rather than stopping. A missed day does not invalidate the rest. Skip the row and carry on.
- In Excel, freeze the header row under View, Freeze Panes, so column labels stay visible as the log grows.
Common questions
How many days should I log?
If a clinician asked, whatever they specified. Otherwise, two weeks including weekends is usually enough to show a pattern without becoming a burden.
Do I need to weigh food or count calories?
Not for a symptom diary or a general record — plain descriptions are fine. If you have been asked to record amounts precisely, follow that advice rather than anything on this page.
Can I use one of these to spot a food intolerance?
A diary can highlight a possible pattern, which is genuinely useful. Confirming an intolerance or allergy needs a clinician — self-diagnosing and cutting out food groups can cause problems of its own.
Do I need Microsoft Excel?
No. Upload the file to Google Sheets and it opens free in a browser, which also lets you fill it in on your phone. LibreOffice Calc works offline.
Can I use one sheet for a whole family?
For meal planning, yes. For a symptom diary, keep one per person — mixed records are difficult to read back and harder for a clinician to interpret.
Can I use these commercially?
Yes, including in a practice or care setting. You may not resell or redistribute the template files themselves. See our Terms of Use.
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