A recent study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, OR found that keeping a food diary is a fantastic (and, dare I say, pretty easy) way to improve your chances of losing weight. In fact, they found that study participants who kept a record of their daily meals actually lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t keep a diary. Dr. Victor J. Stevens says the biggest advantage of writing down what you eat is that "it makes you accountable to yourself." I think it also helps because it allows you to see what you actually eat; for instance, how much mindless snacking or grazing off of other people’s plates do you do in a day? How many times do you really go back for additional servings during a meal? Are you eating sweets or fast food everyday?Seeing your daily food intake written out on paper can be extremely illuminating, and I would recommend it to anyone looking to get in shape or adopt more healthful eating habits. Here are a few tips for keeping an up-to-date food diary from Dr. Keith Bachman, a weight management specialist at Kaiser Permanente:

  • Food diaries don’t have to take traditional pen-and-paper forms. It’s more important to stay on top of it than it is to make it look fancy, so just choose the method that’s easiest for you, be it Post-It notes, a file on your computer or even an e-mail or text message to yourself.
  • Update your diary after each snack or meal. It’s much easier to get an accurate idea of what you’re eating when you log your food intake periodically, as opposed to trying to think back on eveyrthing you ate at the end of the day.
  • Don’t be surprised if the very act of keeping the diary helps you make more healthful food choices! Maybe you won’t eat those Twinkies or that Big Mac if you have to own up to it in your diary, hmm?

food diary

I would add that it’s also a good idea to write down any exercise or physical activity you did during the day as a companion to your food diary. Every time I work out I make a note of it on my calendar, just so I can monitor how active I’ve been and whether I need to step it up a little on the exercise front.

What are your thoughts on food diaries? Do you currently keep one, or have you ever? And do you think it helped you lose weight, get in shape or otherwise meet your food and fitness goals?