Why keeping a food journal will help you lose weight

Hi Weight Loss Buddies! 

 I think the best place for me to start, is just to write down what I eat. Especially since I think that 'unconscious' eating is at the heart of my problem.  This post (half of it) was taken from  Better Health Magazine...You will want to read every word of it!  I know that when I lost the most weight and kept it off, it was because I was writing down what I ate every day. Eventually, I didn't have to any more but I ate so habitually..most of the day that I had no idea how much and how often I was eating!  Forget counting the calories...just write it down. It's flat embarrassing! The main idea here is that it helps you hold yourself accountable.  Reader's Digest had written an article about this 20 years ago and that's what I was looking for, but this article says it even better.  

In fact, I'm going to post my food diary once a week to help keep me accountable to you guys!

Here's the article...

Why keeping a food journal will help you lose weight  by Better Health Magazine

 The secret to shedding pounds, and keeping them off, may be as simple as writing down what you eat and drink in a food journal

By Bonnie Schiedel

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A recent study of 1,700 overweight men and women who participated in a six-month weight-loss program found that those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. Participants also exercised, reduced caloric intake and ate low-fat dairy products plus an average of three servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

“Keeping a food diary is one of the most powerful weight-management tools we have,” says Jack Hollis of the Portland, Oregon-based Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and lead author of the study, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Participants were subsequently followed for an additional 30 months, in one of the largest and longest-running weight-loss maintenance trials ever conducted.

Why do food journals work?

“Many of us want food to ‘not count’—because we’re on vacation, we’re in a rush, we’re just finishing off the broken cookies in the bag,” says Colleen Cannon, a clinical psychologist in Calgary who specializes in helping people deal with the emotional side of eating. “The act of writing down what we eat helps to raise awareness about what we’re doing.”

It can also be a tool to get an understanding of portion size. “Writing down what and how much you eat and adding up the calories helps you to eat more mindfully and stay on track,” says Hollis. “When starting out, people tend to underestimate, so it’s best to measure the portion sizes carefully at first.” He adds that for many people, keeping a food journal is a lifelong tool, while others use it if they notice their weight creeps back up.
Read the rest of this article here...   It's fantastic!

Here is good Food Diary to start with. It's basic and not too complicated.