The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to ‘write it when you bite it’, scientists say
The key to successful fat loss is really very simple, scientists say. All you have to do is "write it when you bite it"
LOSING weight can feel like a really complicated task.
Every week, there's a new hack or diet supposedly making fat loss easier or more effective.
But the key to successful and easy slimming, scientists say, is actually incredibly simple.
They say that despite people believing that keeping a food diary is time-consuming and boring, the reverse is actually true, and that it can be an incredibly effective way of losing body fat.
New research suggests that keeping a food diary really isn't as bad as many of us think.
After six months of keeping a record of what they ate, the most successful participants of an online behavioural weight-loss program spent an average of just 14.6 minutes writing down what they'd eaten.
They recorded the calories and fat for all the foods and drinks they ate, as well as portion sizes and cooking methods.
Conducted by experts at the University of Vermont and the University of South Carolina, this is the first study to find exactly how much time people who successfully lose weight spend recording their meals.
"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?" said Jean Harvey, chair of the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the University of Vermont and the lead author of the study.
"The answer is, not very much."
142 dieters went on the online behavioural weight control programme for 24 weeks.
As well as having a weekly online session with a trained dietician, they also logged their daily food intake - also recording how long it took them to do and how frequently they did it.
Dieters who lost 10 per cent of their body weight - the most successful people in the group - spent an average of 23.2 minutes on the task, and after six months, that had dropped to just 14.6 minutes.
Apps like MyFitnessPal recognise foods once you've entered them once, so you save a lot of time each time you use them.
Scientists found that it wasn't the length of time spent writing the diaries that was important, but rather the frequency with which they wrote them.
"Those who self-monitored three or more time per day, and were consistent day after day, were the most successful," Dr Harvey said.
"It seems to be the act of self-monitoring itself that makes the difference - not the time spent or the details included."
She said that the amount of time probably went down as dieters became more efficient at writing the diaries.
"We know people do better when they have the right expectations," Dr Harvey said.
"We've been able to tell them that they should exercise 200 minutes per week.
"But when we asked them to write down all their foods, we could never say how long it would take. Now we can."
So if you want to lose weight - for good - you need to start tracking what you eat.
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"It's highly effective, and it's not as hard as people think."
MyFitnessPal has a free version, while Lose It! also has an exercise log to alongside the food diary.
If you don't want to use an app, you could always keep a note book and record what you eat in there.
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