The most-logged thing in my diet is coffee

2,527 days in a row, and I've logged every single one since 24 September 2019. It didn't start as some big obsession. I'd just been diagnosed with Crohn's and was trying to work out what set off a flare, and since I've never really been bothered about eating, the app constantly asking what I'd had for breakfast was also a decent way to make myself actually eat something.

I got 100 days in, didn't want to lose the streak, and, well, here we are. Every full year since is a complete 365.

Day logging streak

2,527

Items logged

25,750

Calories in total

5.49M

Across the lot I average 2,173 kcal a day, with a median of 2,142, so it's pretty consistent really, spread over about 10.2 separate entries a day. The lightest day was a grim 15 kcal (3 February 2023); the biggest was a 5,467 kcal day (13 March 2023). There's a story behind both, and it's the same one.

Average day

2,173

Median day

2,142

Lightest, 3 February 2023

15

Heaviest, 13 March 2023

5,467

Split by where the calories actually come from, I'm a carbs man: 52% carbs, 31% fat, 16% protein across the whole lot. Not exactly a bodybuilder's ratio, but it has been slowly shifting, as you'll see.

The numbers go quiet when I'm unwell. I was diagnosed with Crohn's back in 2017, and the years before my surgery were rough: 2022 alone had 48 days under 1,200 kcal, a lot of them barely-eating days while I was flaring. You can see the bad patches in the data, often before I really knew what was going on myself, which is, funnily enough, exactly why I started logging in the first place.

On 26 January 2023 I had ileostomy surgery, and you can spot it in the data without checking a calendar. I more or less stopped eating in hospital while I recovered (that 15-kcal day is in there), then went onto steroids, which give you a massive appetite, and it all swung the other way. My lowest 30-day stretch averaged 1,074 kcal a day, immediately followed by my highest ever at 3,513.

Once I was better I joined the gym (David Lloyd, since you ask) and started actually caring about protein. It had dropped to 46 g a day in 2021, the worst of the illness; it's up around 88 g now, and the carbs have quietly dropped back to make room. It's pretty much the only thing about how I eat that I've actively tried to change.

Coke was the main offender, but it was Pepsi, Fanta, Tango, the lot. Add them all up and at the 2021 peak I logged 574 fizzy drinks in a year; this year, after deciding to knock the fizzy stuff on the head, I'm down to 27. Just a bit of willpower, showing up in the numbers.

Of all the calories I log, dinner takes 37.3%, comfortably the biggest plate of the day, with lunch close behind and breakfast the afterthought it has always been for me. (There are no clock times in the data, just which meal I tagged each thing as.)

Group it all up sensibly, every cappuccino and latte counted as coffee, every Can Of Coke as Coke, and it's a bit grim, honestly. Coffee is comfortably the most-logged thing in here, with Coke close behind, then orange juice and milk. The top of my whole food diary is, basically, just drinks. I run on caffeine, sugar and habit, and the chart isn't going to let me pretend otherwise.

So why am I still at it, 2,527 days deep? Partly the streak. Mostly because I genuinely find the data more interesting than the food. The honest truth is I eat to survive rather than for pleasure, food is an afterthought, which is a bit ridiculous for someone who's logged every single calorie of it.

I'm healthier now than I've ever been, 2026 is shaping up as my biggest-eating year yet, and the only thing keeping the odd day near-empty is that I've moved into my own flat, can't really cook, and forget to eat. I'll keep logging regardless, the habit isn't going anywhere, and I refresh this story every now and then, so the date up top is how current these numbers are.