Food Tracking: One simple step to improve results.

When it comes to weight loss and what you eat, there is one simple change that everyone can make and immediately improve their results.  It’s simple: track what you eat.  A 2008 study by Kaiser Permanente in Oregon found that merely writing down what you eat doubles your likeliness of losing weight.  The study included over 1700 subjects and found that the average food-tracker lost 13 lbs during the 30 month period. 

I’m a big fan of food tracking.  It forces you to be honest with yourself about what you’re eating – no more mindless tortilla chips or handfuls of stuff.  It makes you start thinking about quantity before you consume something.  How much is this?  Is this one portion or two?   I even went so far as to pull out the measuring cups for a while, and it really taught me about portions.  

One great aspect of tracking is that it makes you curious to learn more.  Once you have written down what you’ve eaten, your first question becomes, “So how many calories is that?”   (Many food log aps and websites have that info built in too, a great shortcut.)   Not everyone counts calories, but it is just as easy to track your carbs, your sugars, or your fat intake just as easily – one you have started keeping track of what you eat. 

The greatest thing gained from keeping a food log is AWARENESS.  It’s just amazing how much we can eat and not realize that we’re doing it.  I’m not talking about a bag of Doritos in front of the telly.   So often, we don’t realize that our lunch is really a lunch and a half.  We don’t comprehend that an extra slab of butter just doubled the calories on our roll.  We much on nuts and then discover that we have consumed fat and carbs that total significantly more than we imagined we were eating.  And once we start becoming aware of what we’re putting into ourselves, we adjust it.  We start eating a little better, a little more in line with how we thought we were eating in the first place.  All in all, it helps us to make better food choices.

There are dozens of different food trackers out there.  Besides the purse-sized food logs that you can pick up at Barnes & Noble and write out longhand, there are smartphone apps (I like MyFitnessPal), and websites (SparkPeople, FitDay, etc.)  Or you could be totally DIY like I was in college, when I kept my food journal on an Excel spreadsheet so I could cut and paste my most frequent meals – but with modern technology, I wouldn’t recommend it (it’s just too much unnecessary work.)  And with a camera in every cell phone, I have even heard recommendations to take a picture of everything you eat before you eat it.  No forgetting what you had or how much it was with a picture! 

I also believe that food tracking is one of the keys to Weight Watcher’s success.  Unlike Jenny Craig, NutraSystems or eDiets, all of which instruct you as to what you’re going to eat, Weight Watchers lets its clients eat whatever normal food they want, but they have to track it.  All food is logged and an awareness about what is being eaten is built. 

One easy change – but are you ready to do it?  Food tracking is useless if you aren’t honest about what you’re eating.  If you “leave something off” because you don’t like how it looks written down (usually with the promise to yourself that you’ll do better next time), then you are shorting yourself and you won’t experience the benefits of honestly tracking.   Try tracking for a week, and see for yourself.  Did it wake you up a little?