Keeping a food journal can help you lose weight. Twice as much weight actually.
One of the largest and longest running weight maintenance studies found that the keeping a food diary doubled a person’s weight loss on average, and the more records a person kept, the more weight they lost.
Why does food journaling work? It makes you reflect on what you eat. When you write everything down, you have to confront the unhealthy choices you’ve made. You also get to celebrate and be proud of the good choices you make. Looking over your journal also makes you aware of any eating habits you might have, making it easier to come up with solutions for yourself.
I keep a food journal online. I’ve noticed that many times when I’m about to make a bad food decision, like eating an extra muffin for breakfast, I won’t do it because I know I’ll have to enter it in on my food diary.
Food diaries are a great tool. Anyone can keep a food diary. It doesn’t cost you anything and it barely takes any time to keep one. You can use an old notebook, keep it on a spreadsheet on your computer or use an online diary. I highly recommend keeping on online diary because many of them also help you track calories, set goals and enter in exercise. When all the information is entered, you can chart your progress which can be very motivating and actually fun. They are also free and many of them have applications you can download to your phone or tablet if you want to enter in food or exercise on the go.
If you’d like to try an online food journal, here are a couple of websites to check out:
Source: Kaiser Permanente (2008, July 8). Keeping A Food Diary Doubles Diet Weight Loss, Study Suggests. Science Daily. Retrieved Spetember 13, 20011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708080738.htm
