I know we’re all looking for the simplest solutions, and in fact, that’s a core reason why I write these articles for you to read. So I’m stoked to be able to be able to offer this tutorial on the easiest way I know to log meals you eat. It will work for anyone, but it’s especially easy if you have a smartphone that can send emails.

I had an awesome question from a reader, Jason, who was asking about a photo journalling app. While there are lots around, and it depends a little on which phone system you use as to what you might find, there is a simpler way, that keeps the photos in a safer place than in your cell phone (anyone flushed their’s recently?). Plus, you can share with other people, and check out your photos from other computers.

Here are the (simple) steps to it:

1. Sign Up for or Login to your Flickr account (free)
2. Set up an ‘email to’ address
3. Add tags (keywords) automatically (like 4hb, slow carb)
4. Use the ‘Share’ tool on your cell phone to email a photo to Flickr
5. Snap photos of your meals, and send them off!
6. Share your Flickr web address if you want to show people what you’re eating.

Step 1: Sign Up or Login to your Flickr Account

Head over to www.flickr.com – if you have an account, great! Login and skip to Step 2.

If not, here’s what the sign up process looks like (click for bigger images):

Step 2: Set up your ‘email to’ address

Find the ‘Your Account’ link near the bottom of the ‘You’ menu.

Click the ‘Emails & Notifications’ option

Use the first option – Your Flickr Upload Email – to create an upload-to-flickr email address

Step 3 – Add Tags

Optional, but pretty cool. Add ‘tags’ that flickr will automatically add to each uploaded photo. Here, you see I have added ’4hb, slow carb’

Step 4: Share a photo from your cell phone

Depending on your phone, it might be an icon, a menu option, or something else, but almost every smart phone has the ability to email a photo.

Try taking a picture, and immediately reviewing it – use your menu options to see if you can find a ‘Send’ or ‘Share’ option – and select ‘By Email’, ‘Mail’ or ‘Gmail’ in the case of an Android with the Gmail app.

Enter in the Email address from flickr, enter an email subject (= photo name), and type some info in the body of the email (= photo description) and hit Send.

Step 5: Snap your meals and share them!

Whenever you sit down to eat, simply snap a photo of your meal, and send it away. It’s easy to do, and from time to time, you can come back to your flickr page to check out what you’ve been eating. It might actually surprise you!

Take the 7 day challenge and photograph everything that you’re eating. Everything.

Step 6: Share your meals with other people

This is of course totally optional, but it’s worth doing if you are excited about the meals, or if someone asks you about them. It’s also much faster than trying to explain the slow carb diet to someone who’s never heard of it and can’t figure out why you always want to go to Mexican places for lunch.

Firstly, visit your ‘Photostream’ page by selecting it from the ‘You’ Menu:

Then, copy and paste your unique web address that you have in your address bar (That’s it up the top, starting with http://www.flickr.com/photos/):

Advanced: use an email address modifier to set privacy level:

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