Keeping a Food Diary helps to lose weight

LOSE WEIGHT, FOOD DIARY

FOOD DIARY HELPS TO LOSE WEIGHT

WASHINGTON/REUTERS: Keep a food diary - a detailed account of what you eat and drink and the calories it packs - is a powerful tool in helping people lose weight., US Researchers said on Thursday.
The study involving 1,685 middle aged men and women over a six months period found those who kept such a diary just about every day lost twice as much weight as those who didn't.
The findings buttressed earlier research that endorsed the value of keeping food diaries in helping people lose weight. Companies including the popular Weight Watchers International Inc use the food diaries in their weight loss programs.
"For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique'" Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland said in a telephone interview.
"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 technique also helps to hold the dieters accountable for what they are eating, Stevens said.
The study involved people from four US cities. The average weight loss was about 6 kg. But those who kept records in a food diary six or seven days a week lost about 8 kg compared to 4 kg of those who didn't keep a food diary.
The average age of people in the study was 55.
They were asked to eat less fat, more vegetables, fruit and whole grains, exercise 180 minutes a week mostly by walking, attend group meetings and keep a detailed food diary.