Fit Communications

Don’t you love it when your views are vindicated by an objective third party?

I’m feeling smugly content because sciencedaily.com (love that site–because I’m all about scientific verification) posted a report today confirming that people who keep track of their food intake lose twice as much "weight" than those who don’t. (By "weight," I’m presuming the researchers mean "fat." That’s the only weight we want to lose.)

Here’s the blurb:

ScienceDaily (2008-07-08) — Study of nearly 1,700 participants shows that keeping a food diary can double a person’s weight loss. The study found that the best predictors of weight loss were how frequently food diaries were kept and how many support sessions the participants attended. Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records.

This sounds like quite a well-crafted study. I recommend you read the full article.

This is on my mind because of a recent conversation between myself and a good friend and training partner.

I announced that I’d like to tighten up a bit by the time I reach 50 this September. My goal—a somewhat scary one—is to get back to 125 or thereabouts. It’s scary because 130 is such a comfy setpoint for me. Since I reached my fat-loss goal in April 2005, I’ve usually weighed between 130 and 132, with a low of 128 and a high of 134 (a few weeks ago, when I noticed that either all my pants had shrunk or my butt had expanded).

So my friend said, I’d like to lose 10 pounds by your birthday. My response was, that’s great—what changes will you make to your diet and activity level?

She replied that she was eating pretty clean already, and she figured our gym workouts and her morning walk (three times a week) would do it.

Keep in mind, she’s lifting once or sometimes twice a week. She also enjoys eating out (who doesn’t?). And probably all of you know how hard it is to eat moderately at restaurants.

My point was that if she’s maintaining her weight on the amount she’s eating and the amount she’s working out, why should she expect 10 pounds to drop off if nothing changes?

I’ve been where she is.

During my weight-loss journey, I stayed on a plateau for six months or more because I refused to count calories and just kept thinking, How come I’m not losing weight? I’m eating clean.

Yes, I was eating clean—eating just enough clean calories to maintain my weight. Duh!

When I finally made the commitment to keep a food journal and track my calories, the pounds came off. That’s what I’m doing now to get down to 125. I’m also walking most mornings, doing cardio at the gym about five days a week, and lifting three days a week.

I keep a food journal and also a separate log that tracks the date; whether I walked, lifted, and/or did cardio that day; my waist measurement and scale weight; and how many calories I consumed per day.

I don’t weigh or measure every day, but at the end of the week, the scale and tape measure tell me whether I’ve made progress or not—and the calorie and activity charts tell me what it took to make progress (or not).

Then I know whether my efforts are working or not, and I have a clue what I need to do in response.