One of our lovely mums was very happy last week when she stepped on the scales at the beginning of the session and found that she had lost 3 1/2 pounds in a week! This lady had struggled to lose any more weight since plateauing after her initial post pregnancy weight loss but had been trying hard. After numerous discussions over the past few weeks, last week she finally took my advice and wrote down what she ate and drank for 7 days, she changed nothing else (consciously) but found that just writing everything down stopped her eating as much as usual. The results speak for themselves!

Several studies have shown that keeping a food diary is enough to help some people lose weight. The more often you do it, the better so give it a go and write down everything you eat AND DRINK. Also make a note about why you ate at that particular time e.g. hunger, boredom, stressed this will help you to determine whether you eat due to your emotions. You can then find other ways to cope rather than using food.

SO HOW DOES KEEPING A FOOD DIARY HELP YOU TO LOSE WEIGHT?

It instantly increases your awareness of what, how much, and why you are eating. This helps you cut down on mindless munching.
It helps you identify areas where you can make changes that will help you to lose weight e.g. you might not realise how many calories you consume with soft drinks, which would be easy to change.
A food diary can unveil patterns of overeating.
It can identify triggers to avoid, such as not eating enough throughout the day and then overeating at night, or overeating when drinking alcohol.
For some people, the very fact that they have to record every bite helps deter overeating, they often reconsider eating something because of not wanting to write it down.

So if you want to shift some weight, start a food and drink diary and see what happens. What have you got to lose?