Keeping Food Diary Doubles Weight Loss

Dieters who keep track of what they eat lose weight twice as fast. In a recent study by the

Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, participants who kept food journals lost almost double the weight of their nonjournaling counterparts. And perhaps more impressively, they kept the weight off.

But why do the diaries work? Experts agree that the ultimate value lies in the formation of a "foundation of personal accountability." Almost everyone agrees that accountability is the most important ingredient behind any successful lifestyle change, including weight loss.

By allowing patients to follow their eating patterns throughout the day, the visual diary can highlight pitfalls that may have previously gone unnoticed by a dieter...

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