Journaling has been found to have many health benefits from – reducing stress, improving immune function, keeping memory sharp.   Now a new study has found that journaling – specifically logging your food consumption could help you to loose weight. 

Tracking what you eat more regularly appears to increase weight loss.

Obesity is now a common health issue.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 40 percent of adults in the United States had obesity in 2015–2016.  And this figure has been steadily increasing since 1999.

Most people are aware that obesity brings many health risks, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer.  Despite the health risks of obesity, so many people find it difficult to lose weight.

Write more – loose weight?

Studies have shown that one of the most effective ways to loose weight is Dietary Self-Monitoring.  Dietary self-monitoring requires that a person records all of the food and drink that they consume throughout the day, including portion sizes and preparation methods.  The problems is that, people who are trying to lose weight are often not very enthusiastic about this method.  Many people feel that journaling will be tedious and too time-consuming

However, a new study has confirmed that dietary self-monitoring is an effective weight loose technique and shown that its much easier than it seems.  The study appears in the journal Obesity in a paper called “Log Often, Lose More: Electronic Dietary Self‐Monitoring for Weight Loss.”  One of the key questions the researchers had was – How much time does dietary self-monitoring really take?  To answer this question the researchers studied 142 people who were already enrolled in the Internet Obesity Treatment Enhanced with Motivational Interviewing (iReach2) trial. They were mostly female, and 81 percent of them had obesity.  The study participants were already participating in a dietician-led online session every week for 24 weeks. The researchers asked the 142 people to also log their daily diet using an online program. From this data, the team could see not only what people were eating but also how often they recorded their food intake and how long they spent doing it.  Dietary self-monitoring lasted for 6 months, after which the researchers calculated how long it took people each day and how successful this strategy was for weight loss.

The research team found that the most successful participants were those who lost at least 10 percent of their body weight.  In the first month, of dietary self-monitoring these individuals spent an average of 23.2 minutes per day recording their dietary intake. By the sixth month, this had dropped significantly to 14.6 minutes.  The researchers believe that this decrease could be due to two factors: the participants’ efficiency in logging their diet and the online program’s ability to predict regularly used words and phrases.

Frequency is key

Neither the amount of time that people spent recording their diet nor the level of detail had much effect on weight loss success.  Similar studies have also shown that it’s the number of times people log data that leads to a better outcome.  It seems that dietary logging at least twice a day was likely to result in more significant weight loss.   Those who self-monitored three or more times per day and were consistent day after day were most successful with weight loss.

It seems to be the act of self-monitoring itself that makes the difference — not the time spent or the details included.

Many people don’t even try to loose weight because they think that dieting and exercise is too difficult.  This study shows that the simple act of logging what you eat 2-3 times a day can go a long way toward promoting weight loss.  Moreover, logging doesn’t have to happen on using a high tech app.  A simple 99 cent note pad that can be carried in a pocket or a purse will do the trick.