The key to weight loss: 'Log often, lose more'
Many people consider logging everything that they eat to be a tedious task. However, this effective weight-loss technique takes much less time than most people think, according to a recent study.
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.
This figure has been steadily increasing since 1999.
Most people are aware that obesity carries many health risks, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer. Despite this, people tend to find it difficult to lose weight.
Studies have shown that one of the most effective weight loss strategies is dietary self-monitoring. This method requires a person to record all of the food and drink that they consume throughout the day, noting portion sizes and preparation methods.
People who are trying to lose weight are often less than enthusiastic about this method, believing it to be overly time-consuming. However, researchers at the University of Vermont in Burlington and the University of South Carolina in Columbia have found that monitoring your diet is highly effective and much easier than it seems.
"People hate it; they think it's onerous and awful, but the question we had was: How much time does dietary self-monitoring really take?" says Jean Harvey, lead author of the study and chair of the University of Vermont's Nutrition and Food Sciences Department. "The answer is, not very much."
Quicker over time
In total, 142 participants took part in the study. These individuals had 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 participants joined a dietician-led online session every week for 24 weeks. The researchers also asked them to 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 results feature in the journal Obesity in a paper called "Log Often, Lose More: Electronic Dietary Self?Monitoring for Weight Loss."
