By Oana Pop,
Project Weight Loss Editor
July 15, 2008The record of foods eaten and a good analysis of it are crucial for your weight loss. Tracking your progress and making the necessary adjustments is the key to a successful weight loss plan.
U.S researchers took up a study involving people from all over the country - Baltimore, Oregon, Maryland, Durham, North Carolina, and Portland, Louisiana - in which they wanted to establish whether a food diary is a good way to control the diet and help losing weight.
The large number of participants, 1,685 middle–aged women and men, were all dealing with the same problem, their weight. The study asked them to keep a food diary for six months. The results showed that the participants managed to improve their diet and lose weight.
The participants keeping a strict food diary lost twice as much as the ones who didn`t. "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.
The average age of the participants was fifty–five. Caucasians made up sixty–six percent of the people involved in the study. The researchers noticed that African– Americans have a higher risk than others towards obesity including the second type of diabetes and also, heart problems.
The people involved in the study were basically asked to eat less fat and increase the amount of vegetables, whole grains and raw fruits. They were also recommended to attend group meetings, exercise 180 minutes a week mostly only by walking and keep a detailed food diary.
"Keeping a food diary doesn't have to be a formal thing. Just the act of scribbling down what you eat on a Post-It note, sending yourself e-mails tallying each meal or sending yourself a text message will suffice," Dr. Keith Bachman, another Kaiser Permanente expert, said in a statement.
Just as a food diary will help people dealing with weight loss problems, so will a work-out diary. It is very important for dieters to acknowledge every effort made towards losing weight and these two methods are now proven to be helpful.
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