Three Tricks to Lose Weight

There are three good habits that are key to sustained weight loss and maintenance, a recent study has found.

After studying 123 women trying to lose weight, researchers discovered that the ones who did so most successfully followed three significant rules – they kept a food diary, avoided eating out and never skipped meals.

The women who obeyed these basic dieting commandments lost five to eight pounds more than their counterparts.

Researchers following the 123 women aged 50 to 75, who were talking part in a larger Nutrition and Exercise for Women study, discovered that those women who kept a food diary, logging all the food and drink they consumed on a daily basis, lost six pounds more on average than those who didn’t keep such a diary.

Likewise, those dieters who ate three meals a day consistently were able to lose eight pounds more than those who skipped meals – thought to be due to the fact that skipping meals causes you to subsequently overeat.

Finally, women who ate outside the home for lunch at least once a week lost five pounds fewer on average than those who stayed at home. This suggests a lack of control over calories when in a restaurant. Interestingly, restaurant lunches were a particular culprit for stalling weight loss –fast food restaurants weren’t to blame either as only 10% of participants reported eating out in them.

“We were surprised at how much of a difference using food journals and eating at home made,” admitted researcher Dr. Anne McTiernan, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

“We found that the better women in our study were at consistently writing down everything they ate and drank, the more weight they were able to lose.”

When it comes to restaurants, she added: “I think the real key is knowing how many calories you’re getting, and controlling the amount. That’s very difficult to do in restaurants where you can’t always tell how many calories are in your meal.”

Dr McTiernan believes that restricting total calories is much more important than restricting only certain types of calories, such as when following a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet. She stressed that dieters needed to find the form of calorie reduction that worked best for them.