Research shows that keeping a food diary can drastically help you lose weight.
Keeping a food diary can double your weight loss, a new study shows.
A recent study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research found that- dieters who kept track of what they ate in a food journal lost twice as much weight compared those who didn't. And perhaps more impressively, they kept the weight off.
The results of this study point to food diaries as an inexpensive and straightforward method for weight-loss.
In the study, which is in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, they followed almost 1,700 men and women who were either overweight or obese. The average weight was 212 pounds. The participants attended 20 weekly group meetings and were encouraged to eat about 500 fewer calories a day, to engage in moderate intensity physical activity 30 minutes or more a day, and to follow the low-fat, low-sodium DASH dietary plan, which emphasizes fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy foods.
Participants were asked to record daily food intake and their exercise minutes.
"For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique," said Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research.
"Those who kept no food records lost about 9 pounds, and those who kept a food diary lost about 18 pounds. That's a whopping difference. The technique also helps hold dieters accountable for what they are eating. It makes you accountable to yourself," Stevens said.
"It helps the participants see where the extra calories are coming from, and then develop more specific plans to deal with those situations," said Stevens, who helped lead the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"The more I got into it, the easier it became to keep track of what I ate every day," Frank Bitzer, a 64-year-old retired project manager and study subject, lost 26 pounds during the study, and his cholesterol dropped to healthy levels. Today, four years after the end of the study, he has kept off 20 pounds and continues to feel the positive health effects. Asked about his experiences with keeping a food diary, he described it as "enlightening." He attributed much of his success to the ability to gain immediate information and "see the error of your ways”. "It enabled me to see how much of an impact it made with even just a slight change in your diet, such as having a bowl of ice cream or a fast-food cheeseburger," he says. "That can really skew your calorie intake."
New England Journal of Medicine (02/26/09) - All that really counts is cutting calories and sticking with it, according to a federal study. New research found that the key to losing weight boiled down to a basic rule — calories in, calories out.
The study was led by Harvard School of Public Health and Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Lead researcher of Harvard said "They just need to focus on how much they're eating."
Low-fat diet, low-carbohydrate diet or high-protein diet, which diet is the best? The kind of diet doesn't matter, scientists say. "Limiting the calories you consume is key," said the Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
When keeping a food diary, dieters write down, for better or worse, every calorie they eat and drink each day.
A recent study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research found that- dieters who kept track of what they ate in a food journal lost twice as much weight compared those who didn't. And perhaps more impressively, they kept the weight off.
The results of this study point to food diaries as an inexpensive and straightforward method for weight-loss.
In the study, which is in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, they followed almost 1,700 men and women who were either overweight or obese. The average weight was 212 pounds. The participants attended 20 weekly group meetings and were encouraged to eat about 500 fewer calories a day, to engage in moderate intensity physical activity 30 minutes or more a day, and to follow the low-fat, low-sodium DASH dietary plan, which emphasizes fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy foods.
Participants were asked to record daily food intake and their exercise minutes.
"For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique," said Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research.
"Those who kept no food records lost about 9 pounds, and those who kept a food diary lost about 18 pounds. That's a whopping difference. The technique also helps hold dieters accountable for what they are eating. It makes you accountable to yourself," Stevens said.
"It helps the participants see where the extra calories are coming from, and then develop more specific plans to deal with those situations," said Stevens, who helped lead the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"The more I got into it, the easier it became to keep track of what I ate every day," Frank Bitzer, a 64-year-old retired project manager and study subject, lost 26 pounds during the study, and his cholesterol dropped to healthy levels. Today, four years after the end of the study, he has kept off 20 pounds and continues to feel the positive health effects. Asked about his experiences with keeping a food diary, he described it as "enlightening." He attributed much of his success to the ability to gain immediate information and "see the error of your ways”. "It enabled me to see how much of an impact it made with even just a slight change in your diet, such as having a bowl of ice cream or a fast-food cheeseburger," he says. "That can really skew your calorie intake."
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New England Journal of Medicine (02/26/09) - All that really counts is cutting calories and sticking with it, according to a federal study. New research found that the key to losing weight boiled down to a basic rule — calories in, calories out.
The study was led by Harvard School of Public Health and Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Lead researcher of Harvard said "They just need to focus on how much they're eating."
Low-fat diet, low-carbohydrate diet or high-protein diet, which diet is the best? The kind of diet doesn't matter, scientists say. "Limiting the calories you consume is key," said the Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
When keeping a food diary, dieters write down, for better or worse, every calorie they eat and drink each day.
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