Dieting? Study Says Keep a Journal For Successful Weight Loss!
Overeating is often governed by factors as diverse as stress, skipping a meal and overcompensating, eating on the run, eating while doing something, for example, watching TV, reading, texting, Facebooking or Tweeting. Eating becomes "secondary," even perfunctory to these engrossing actions. There is the giving over to emotion, another task or pressure, so you lose track of exactly how much you eat. Unconscious eating is your enemy; unawareness when eating, the bane of losing weight. What is a way to restore cognizance when devouring a meal, especially if you intend to lose weight to zipper up those very tight jeans that just won't seal shut because of belly overhang?
Journaling! I know, I know. Who wants to write down the 89 barbecue chips thickly coated in onion dip you just inhaled? Or maybe you have to scarf down that bacon cheeseburger in two minutes because you had to dash to that sample sale to make a try for a fabulously chic, black, designer bag. Do you think notations spoil the fun of nearly swallowing whole those two Godiva cocoa truffles, and later grazing on your secret stash: one peanut cluster, two pecan pralines and three coconut and lavender creams? I get it: you'd rather be mentally inert, so you can eat that buttery palmier and forget about it later.
Let's get real. Writing down every morsel you plant on top of your tongue does take the joy out of food fantasies. But the reality will give you a necessary shock and remind you that this is truth and consequences and the consequences are those breathtakingly snug jeans, bulging fat back, and underarm bra rolls peaking out to remind you that you've been overindulging these last two months.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle concluded that keeping a food journal increases the likelihood of individuals' awareness of what they eat and reminds them during the day the extent to which they might be eating excessively.
Investigators gave study participants, 123 overweight-to-obese, sedentary, Seattle-area women aged 50-75, a printed booklet to record their food and beverage consumption. However, it didn't matter whether participants wrote their notes in a small pad or on a hand held device as long as the items they ate were cataloged,
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