Proof: Food Journals Double Weight Loss

Another option to track your progress is iScale an iPhone and iPod Touch application.

See for yourself! www.allofzero.com

--Derrek

"increase in physical activity per week is estimated to have a greater effect on weight loss for men than for women, regardless of race."

This does not surprise me. I feel like I've seen this in action-- men increasing activity losing weight easier than women without food focus. I wonder why this is?

Heather,

Exercise has a greater fat-loss effect on men than women for a few reasons:

1. Men generally have more lean body mass (everything except fat) than women. An equal amount of exercise is going to result in a larger caloric burn for the individual with more lean body mass. Advantage: Men

2. At the start of a new exercise program, men are much, much, much more likely to go nuts and try to transform themselves into an Olympic caliber athlete overnight. More likely to injure themselves or have a heart attack as well. Women generally take things more gradually, easing into the new routine, ramping the intensity up in a much more sensible manner.

Advantage: Men

Sort of - Quicker fat loss v.s. greater chance of injury and/or death

It's your call

3. There are a few more hormonal/biochemical reasons, but they are far too detailed and boring to list here.

Shameless plug for my blog: http://healthhabits.wordpress.com
Lots of training & nutrition info

Phase 2 of the study, the maintenance phase, was reported here http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/10254 . This is good news and bad news; the good is that many people can lose weight and keep much of it off for at least a year or two, and achieve some health benefits. The bad is that only modest amounts of weight were lost and much of that was regained. If anyone knows of more reports from this study please let us know.

This study doesn't surprise me and probably other people who are fitness professionals or long-time weight-losers, but it's still huge news for the public. The simple act of writing it down is so powerful because it brings awareness to people about what they're eating.

I'm wondering whether they were counting calories or just keeping a journal? Does keeping a journal without counting calories make as much of a difference?

I would have liked the participants to have been all one race, gender, etc. and have the only variable be the journal-keeping.

I will say though, that when I started to eat healthier, I kept a journal of my "old" way of eating just to have a starting point for my reference. I never thought I ate "that much" food but when I added up everything I ate in a day and tabulated how many calories it had, I realized that I was eating something like 4500-5000 calories a day. Keeping track of my food intake helped me to remember what I had eaten earlier in the day so I could "budget" the rest of my calories.

Delete the "close parenthesis" [)] from Quito's URL and you should be able to read the Medscape article, which is brief.

-Steve

We ask our clients to keep diet diaries, but that has more to do with tracking wether a person is having an unforseen reaction to a certain type of food. They are excellent tools in terms of focus and accountability though, and this study does not really surprise me.

It's easy to convince yourself that you are eating well when there is no way to prove otherwise. With a strict diet journal it makes it easier to look back and see where you are making poor nutrition choices. A diet journal helps finding issues which in turn leads to fixing them.

Some interesting new research by a doctor has identified several species of parasites and a specific type of goopy plaque that if left in your bowels makes you fat, bloated, developing a pouch and spare-tire belly.

This is the cause of people’s obesity -- fortunately, this research also reveals how to stop it. It further explains that the same cause of why people get fat is also the same reason why people eventually get sick and die prematurely -- often cutting off years from their lives (not to mention the quality of their lives).

People who flush these parasites out, often report rapid weight losses up to 100 lbs or more -- and without changing a single thing about their diets. Not that you need to lose anywhere near that amount... but it does prove how well it works.

For more information please visit http://www.thefatlosssecret.blogspot.com/

Food journals can be excellent tools for maintaining health in general, as well as for tracking weight loss and physical activity. I've been very successful with the Zone diet (lost 100 pounds 13 yrs ago and hae kept it off). Keeping a food journal at certain times has been of great value.

My name is Jarrett, and I endorse this message. I have no doubt that journals help with weight loss. Until people start tracking it, most have no idea just how much they consume in a day/week. (Don't forget to track weekends, too.)

consistent food journaling , exercise (cardio + resistance) is what has helped me achieve a healthy weight for the first time in my life.

That's expected. A Weight journal really can help you identify weak areas if your diet.