The Key to Weight Loss Success

You have been waiting to hear these words for years...or at least as long the zipper on your tight-fit jeans hasn't budged. The key to weight loss success! It's not a shake, a supplement, or an exercise gizmo. You have it already, right at your finger tips.

And that is to keep a food diary. Yes, it takes some time to note everything consumed during the day, but this in itself can curtail overeating and be vital for self-assessment and monitoring.  

Studies show that people who keep food journals lose more weight and keep more of that weight off in the long run. A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that dieters who tracked their food intake in a "food diary" lost twice as much weight as those who didn't track their food.

This is why the Diet Tracker plays such a key role in diet programs. It gives you a proven, fighting chance. If you're not yet a Diet Tracker user, try it out for a few days and see if it helps you make better choices, too.

Why keep a food journal?

• Tracking the food we consume forces us to take responsibility for our food choices. It shows what we're really eating.
• An accurate food journal helps us see eating patterns, giving us insight into when and why we eat.
• Monitoring the foods we eat helps us estimate calorie intake, so we can make adjustments, by eating less or exercising more.

If you're beginning a program to change your habits, you may want to start with a baseline food journal that keeps track of a "typical" week of food choices and exercise. This way, you'll have a better handle on what you need to work on-- problem times or situations, circumstances that make it difficult to eat healthy, and so on. The level of detail you record depends on your goals, but a couple of things to jot down include:

• What you eat and how much you eat: You can estimate portions, but be honest and be thorough-- don't forget items such as candy, condiments, etc. Record as you go to ensure accuracy.
• Any exercise you did, including the activity, length and intensity.

Once you have an initial journal, you can set priorities for what to work on. Does the routine of a workday keep you in line, while the freedom of the weekend weakens your willpower? Do you live on convenience foods that are heavy on processing but light on nutrients and real taste? Important things to consider include:

• What is your real motivation for eating? Are you truly hungry when you eat or are you eating for emotional reasons?
• Do you eat well-balanced meals with reasonable serving sizes? If not, map out the changes you'd like to make.
• Do you eat at appropriate intervals, or do you eat a little and then overindulge later? It may seem counterintuitive, but eating smaller amounts more often may keep your energy high, and prevent overeating.

A food journal allows you to compare your habits to the healthy habits recommended by experts. You can then continue to track what's important to you-whether it involves elaborate detail or very simple information.

Keeping a food journal can make us uncomfortable because doing so forces us to recall things we'd rather not take note of-that pizza we had for lunch, or that chocolate shake we had in evening. In other words: no pain, no gain. When you see the foods you've eaten listed in black-and-white, you can't wish them away. But pain, even metaphorical pain, can be the impetus for change-and if used consistently, a food journal can be the instrument of that change.