Want to lose weight?

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Keep a food journal, don't skip meals and avoid going out to lunch.

If you are trying to lose weight, adopting these three key strategies will boost your chances of success, new research suggests.

"Greater food-journal use predicted better weight-loss outcomes, whereas skipping meals and eating out more frequently were associated with less weight loss," writes Dr. Anne McTiernan, a research professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle. In the new study, she and her colleagues looked at a wide range of behaviors and meal patterns to evaluate what works and what doesn't.

The study lends support to the value of many strategies long suggested for weight loss or maintaining a weight loss, McTiernan said. "Our study was unique in asking about all of these behaviors in one weight-loss intervention study, to see which ones actually worked."

Specifically, McTiernan and colleagues found that:

• Women who kept food journals consistently lost about 6 pounds more than those who did not
• Women who reported skipping meals lost almost 8 fewer pounds than women who did not
• Women who ate out for lunch at least weekly lost on average 5 fewer pounds than those who ate out less frequently (eating out often at all meal times was associated with less weight loss, but the strongest association was observed with lunch)

“For individuals who are trying to lose weight, the No. 1 piece of advice based on these study results would be to keep a food journal to help meet daily calorie goals. It is difficult to make changes to your diet when you are not paying close attention to what you are eating,” said McTiernan, director of the Hutchinson Center’s Prevention Center and a member of its Public Health Sciences Division.

Tips for Keeping a Food Journal

Study participants were given the following tips for keeping a food journal:

• Be honest – record everything you eat
• Be accurate – measure portions, read labels
• Be complete – include details such as how the food was prepared, and the addition of any toppings or condiments
• Be consistent – always carry your food diary with you or use a diet-tracking application on your smart phone

“While the study provided a printed booklet for the women to record their food and beverage consumption, a food journal doesn’t have to be anything fancy,” McTiernan said. “Any notebook or pad of paper that is easily carried or an online program that can be accessed any time through a smart phone or tablet should work fine.”

Avoid Skipping Meals

In addition to documenting every morsel that passes one’s lips, another good weight-loss strategy is to eat at regular intervals and avoid skipping meals. “The mechanism is not completely clear, but we think that skipping meals or fasting might cause you to respond more favorably to high-calorie foods and therefore take in more calories overall,” she said. “We also think skipping meals might cluster together with other behaviors. For instance, the lack of time and effort spent on planning and preparing meals may lead a person to skip meals and/or eat out more.”

Minimise Eating Out

Eating out frequently, another factor associated with less weight loss, may be a barrier for making healthful dietary choices. “Eating in restaurants usually means less individual control over ingredients and cooking methods, as well as larger portion sizes,” the authors wrote.

The analysis was based on data from 123 overweight-to-obese, sedentary, Seattle-area women, ages 50 to 75, who were randomly assigned to two arms of a controlled, randomized year-long dietary weight-loss intervention study: diet only and exercise plus diet. Study participants filled out a series of questionnaires to assess dietary intake, eating-related weight-control strategies, self-monitoring behaviors and meal patterns. They were also asked to complete a 120-item food-frequency questionnaire to assess dietary change from the beginning to the end of the study.

At the end of the study, participants in both arms lost an average of 10 percent of their starting weight, which was the goal of the intervention.

“We think our findings are promising because it shows that basic strategies such as maintaining food journals, eating out less often and eating at regular intervals are simple tools that postmenopausal women – a group commonly at greater risk for weight gain – can use to help them lose weight successfully,” McTiernan said.

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The above story is based on the July 13, 2012 news release by the FredHutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle 

The findings by Anne McTiernan and colleagues  are published online in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the Journal of the American Dietetic Association):

McTiernan et al. Self-monitoring and Eating-related Behaviors are Associated with 12-month Weight Loss Among Postmenopausal Overweight-to-obese Women in a Dietary Weight Loss Intervention. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2012 (in press)

More information

To learn more about keeping a food diary, visit the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.