Dear diary: Keeping a food log can double weight loss

by Maggie Vink (Subscribe to Maggie Vink's posts)
Jul 8th 2008 5:00PM

Losing weight can be a tricky business. Despite all the fancy programs and diet claims, weight loss boils down to one thing: burning more calories than you consume. But if you're not careful, you may be consuming more calories than your realize.

Counting calories seems so hopelessly 1980's, though, doesn't it? And, let's face it, tracking every calorie is a bit of a pain. But a food diary doesn't have to be an obsessive tabulation of every little thing -- it's merely a way for you to ensure you're getting a balanced, nutritious diet in the range of calories you want to consume.

It's a habit that is well worth the effort. A Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study found that participants who kept a food diary lost almost twice as much weight as those who didn't.

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Comments (3)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

John 7-08-2008 @ 9:47PM

As a personal trainer for over 20 years, I have to agree that regardless of the type of diet you choose, the one constant of success is journaling your food. The average person eats 25% more calories than they think. If you have someone to be accountable to who will review the journal, even better. Since most people tend to eat the same foods week in week out it gets pretty easy to keep track of the food values.

For tips and info please visit my website at http://www.ultimatehlth.com

Derrek 7-09-2008 @ 3:53AM

Another option to track your progress is iScale an iPhone and iPod Touch application.

See for yourself! www.allofzero.com

--Derrek

Zoe 8-04-2008 @ 11:48AM

I work from home, which in itself is sometimes fattening, so everytime I eat something, I log it in a word document on the computer. The effort of doing this keeps me on my life program. Not only does it take time to log it, seeing it at the end of the day makes it more clear as to how much I've stayed on the program.