Maintaining a food diary can help double your diet weight loss

Washington, July 9 : Want to intensify your weight loss regimen? Well, just maintain a food diary, suggests a new study, which found that by keeping food records, people can double their chances of losing that extra flab.

The study from Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research was one of the largest and longest running weight loss maintenance trials ever conducted.

In the study, large percentage of African Americans was recruited as study participants (44 percent).

African Americans have a higher risk of conditions that are aggravated by being overweight, including diabetes and heart disease. In this study, the majority of African American participants lost at least nine pounds of weight, which is higher than in previous studies.

"The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost," said lead author Jack Hollis Ph.D., a researcher at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.

"Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories," he added.

In addition to keeping food diaries and turning them in at weekly support group meetings, participants were asked to follow a heart-healthy DASH (a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low-fat or non-fat dairy, attend weekly group sessions and exercise at moderate intensity levels for at least 30 minutes a day.

After six months, the average weight loss among the nearly 1,700 participants was approximately 13 pounds.

More than two-thirds of the participants (69 percent) lost at least nine pounds, enough to reduce their health risks and qualify for the second phase of the study, which lasted 30 months and tested strategies for maintaining the weight loss.

"More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. If we all lost just nine pounds, like the majority of people in this study did, our nation would see vast decreases in hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and stroke," said study co-author Victor Stevens, Ph.D., a Kaiser Permanente researcher.

Keith Bachman, MD, a Weight Management Initiative member, said: "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. It's the process of reflecting on what you eat that helps us become aware of our habits, and hopefully change our behavior."

The study will be published in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

ANI