HEALTH NEWS
Recent Articles:
Keeping a Weight Loss
Diary doubles your weight loss
ABC NEWS 08/20/2008
Food Diaries: Losing Weight the 'Write'
Way
America has a well-publicized weight problem.
Even though Americans fork over billions of dollars
a year for weight-loss products and services, about
66% of US adults are overweight or obese, according
to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Aside from well-known risks like diabetes and heart
disease, being too heavy also raises a person's
risk for many types of cancer. Getting to a healthy
weight and staying there can help lower those risks.
But as anyone who has tried to shed a few pounds
knows, dropping weight can be tough.
If Dieting, Take Note
Forget for a moment about all the diets, pills,
potions, programs, supplements, books, gadgets,
and gizmos out there. All a person needs to do to
lose weight, experts say, is to consistently burn
more calories than they eat.
Easier said than done. Studies have shown that
dieters tend to significantly underestimate how
much they eat, and to overestimate their activity
levels.
Instead of relying on guesswork, organizations
like the American Dietetic Association and the Food
and Drug Administration recommend dieters keep records
of what they eat in a detailed, daily food diary.
They may be on to something.
In a recent Kaiser Permanente Center for Health
Research study, dieters who kept track of what they
ate in a daily food diary showed double the weight
loss of those who didn't.
The Kaiser team enrolled 1,700 overweight or obese
adults, 44% of them African-American, in a long-term
weight-loss program. In the first 6 months of the
program, participants were offered 20 weekly group
sessions led by nutritionists and behavior counselors.
They were asked to consume about 500 fewer calories
a day, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, do about
180 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week,
and keep a daily food diary.
At the end of 6 months, those who kept a diary
lost an average of 18 pounds, compared to 9 pounds
for those who didn't. (Attending more weekly support
group sessions was also associated with greater
weight loss.)
"Those who kept daily food records lost twice
as much weight as those who kept no records,"
lead author and Kaiser Permanente researcher Jack
Hollis, PhD, told the press. "It seems that
the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages
people to consume fewer calories."
The study appears in the August 2008 issue of the
American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Record What You Eat ... and Why
"For people wanting to change their eating
habits, keeping a food diary can be a tremendous
help," says Colleen Doyle, MS, RD, director
of nutrition and physical activity at the American
Cancer Society.
"Writing down what you eat, how much you eat,
and how often you eat can really help open your
eyes to positive changes you can make," she
says.
Update your food diary as soon as you can after
eating something, she recommends. You may sacrifice
accuracy if you try to reconstruct an entire day
or more at once.
It's also important to write down your mood as
you update your food journal, Doyle says. "This
will help you uncover whether you are eating as
an emotional response -- because you are happy,
sad, depressed, or angry about something, rather
than eating because you're actually hungry."
Some other factors that could provide insight into
your eating habits, Doyle says, include:
Where you are. "Your food diary might make
you aware of how many times you end up stopping
at a certain doughnut shop you pass on your way
to work,” she says. “Seeing the pattern might encourage
you to change it, like finding a new route to take."
Who is with you. "You may find that you split
a bagel with your friend Sue at your 10 a.m. work
break, whether you're hungry or not, or that whenever
you’re with Grandma, she wants you to eat double
portions of her famous peach cobbler and you always
oblige. If eating with someone or eating more because
of someone becomes routine -- especially if you’re
not even hungry -- it’s time to break the routine,”
Doyle says. “Those half bagels can really add up
over time!"
The nibble factor. "You may find that when
you get home from work and are preparing dinner
that you're so hungry you nibble your way through
prep time,” she says. “You can eat hundreds of calories
before dinner. Plan a healthy mid-afternoon snack
so you're not starving when you get home."
The most important thing, however, is to be completely
and totally honest with yourself about what and
how much you eat and drink. Write down every last
thing -- from the second helping of bacon and eggs
at breakfast, to the 4 cookies you may have binged
on before dinner, to that late-night scoop of ice
cream.
"Your best chance of success is to get a real
handle on what you’re currently doing and go from
there," Doyle says.
Food Diary a Part of the Eat-Right Challenge
"A food diary doesn’t need to be fancy to be
effective,” she adds. It can be as simple as this
chart from the American Cancer Society's Great American
Eat-Right Challenge Web site.
The Eat-Right Challenge encourages people to make
simple lifestyle changes that have been shown to
reduce the risk of cancer and other serious diseases.
Visitors to the Eat-Right site can find tasty American
Cancer Society recipes as well as helpful advice
on shopping and cooking smarter, eating out without
wrecking your diet, and avoiding the problem of
portion size distortion.
If you think you'd do better with more a structured
approach, or with more hands-on, personal support,
an Internet search will turn up hundreds of options
-- from interactive journals, exhaustive caloric
databases, and online support groups to commercial
weight-loss programs, nutrition counselors, and
food counselors available at varying prices, both
at the local and national level.
But at the end of the day, what your food diary
looks like is totally up to you, says Doyle. "Just
make it suit your personal style, and don't be afraid
to experiment and make changes along the way.
Weight
Loss During the Intensive Intervention Phase of
the Weight-Loss Maintenance Trial. Published
in the August, 2008 issue of the American Journal
of Preventive Medicine (Vol. 35, No. 2:118-126).
First author: Jack F. Hollis, PhD, Center for Health
Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland,
Oregon
*
