Study: Keeping a diary of what you eat can reduce weight
A major study has found that dieters who kept a food diary about what they ate lost twice as much weight as dieters who didn’t keep a log.
Kaiser Permanente monitored 1,700 people and put them on a low-fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables aimed at lowering hypertension and improving overall health. While the participants lost an average of 13 pounds during the six-month regimen, those who kept a diary lost an average of 18 pounds, and those who did not lost nine.
“It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories,” lead author Jack Hollis, a Kaiser-Permanente researcher said.
The Geek Diet is/was my using BalanceLog software on my PC and PDA to track calories, logging everything I ate. And, yes, it actually worked. Not only did it give me a goal, but the need to recognize that I was eating (by writing down what I was nibbling on) gave me the awareness necessary to actually decide whether I wanted to be adding those calories or not.
It’s good to see that there’s some scientific backing of what’s going on with me there.
Now … I just need to get back to doing myself …