How keeping a food diary can help you lose weight

One barrier to weight loss is the extra calories that sneak in when you’re not looking—finishing the food on your child’s plate, sneaking a bite of your friend’s dessert or snacking while you prepare dinner may seem insignificant, but those extra bits can really add up.

So how can you keep track of what you’re really eating? Many experts recommend keeping a food diary, and a new study from the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (courtesy of ScienceDaily.com) shows that food diaries really do work: within the study group, people who kept a record of what they ate lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t write it down.

I’ve never tried keeping a food diary—it seems like a cumbersome task to me—but you can’t argue with results. And when you have to write every bite down, that cookie in the lunch room seems a lot less appealing. (Imagine if your diary had to be public!)

Have you ever kept a food diary? Did you find it an effective tool?

For more on weight loss, read the following articles:
• Shed Pounds Now
• 11 Get-Slim Secrets
• Summer-Slim Meal Plan