The TPD = The Travelling Photo-dieter

A couple of years ago I hit on the idea of photographing whatever I ate, when I ate it, in order to keep track of what I ate, help me make the right choices, and to break the ‘mindless eating’ habit where you don’t even realise you had the biscuit or chocolate. It taught me a lot. I didn’t realise just how often I snacked at work. But the most surprising thing was the amount of food I ate. I knew I ate healthy food so I didn’t understand why I was fat. But I discovered that not only did I snack on bad stuff more often than I thought, but the amount of food, even healthy food, that I put on my plate was far greater than I had realised. Even healthy food has fat and calories.

I lost about a stone (14 pounds) before I stopped photographing my food. It wasn’t boredom, or other people’s comments that made me stop. My partner had a bad accident and photo-dieting (and, at times, even remembering to eat) was far from my mind.

The weight gradually crept back on, as weight will if you don’t keep an eye on it. I was busy. I was preparing to emigrate, I was planning a trip on my way to emigrate. Photo-dieting while on my trip was going to be too much bother. But was it?

I realised that it was a perfect time to record the food choices I made, the food choices available to me, and the different places I ate. I'll be travelling for nearly three months between leaving the UK and arriving in New Zealand. All but two of those weeks will be in the United States.

So I decided to get the camera out at mealtimes again. To choose the 'heathy choice' where there was one, and not to worry too much when there wasn't. I'll photograph the food and, when I can, the place in which it was eaten or bought.

I missed photographing a couple of the meals on the first day or so as I'd not yet decided Iwas doing this.

In case you are interested, the original 'photo-dieter' flickrstream is at and my 'proper' photographs, incuding the photos of the trip, and my 365 days self portraits are at