If you want to get really serious about weight loss and you haven’t been successful at getting or keeping the fat pounds off then you need to get serious about logging foods and meals for awhile.
Just today a 200-pound male client told me that he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t losing weight because he knew he “just wasn’t eating that much.” The truth of the matter is he really was “eating that much” but he didn’t perceive that he was. And that’s one of the key reasons why logging foods for awhile makes a lot of sense and why it works.
People who fly by the seat of their parents, who aren’t successfully moving toward their weight-loss goals, are very likely underestimating what they’re consuming by as much as 50 percent (1). Overweight people asked to use dietary recall (i.e., their memory) to determine what they eat are universally inaccurate.
Although diet hucksters, charlatans, ripoff artists and the ignorant will claim that logging is for losers or life is too short to count calories research shows that keeping a food log can double a person’s chances of success in losing weight (2).
In one study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine the authors noted a direct correlation between weight-loss results and number of food records kept (3). The more people logged their foods the better they did. Check out the graph from the study below.
Along the left you see weight drop expressed in kilograms. Along the bottom you see the number of food records kept per week. Across the board everyone did better (i.e., lost more weight) as their food records kept per week increased.
In yet another study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity the authors stated that for both men and women “food diary engagement” (i.e., logging foods) accounted for 21% and 19% respectively of the weight-loss success in those who lost weight. Check out Table 3 from this study below.
I hope, although your lazy side might be fighting the truth for all its worth, that you are starting to believe if you already hadn’t, that logging foods and meals for awhile is science-supported, beneficial to the weight fighters and worth a try if you’ve been stuck and aren’t already living at your ideal dream weight.
So what’s the best way to log your foods and meals for awhile? Paper and pencil? Chicken-scratched post-it notes? Software residing on your computer?
Paper and pencil or chicken-scratched post-it notes are definitely out in my opinion. Here’s why… Believe it or not you only eat about 20 different meals a week. Over the course of any 90-day period 90 percent of your meals come from those 20 meals or the slightest variation of one of those meals. For example, you might eat chicken breast, brown rice and green beans for a meal and a slight variation might be chicken breast, sweet potato and green beans. Paper and pencil of any kind is a chore when you consider the power behind a computer.
Computers are fantastic at managing repetitive tasks. Food logging, within a very short period of time, becomes a repetitive “only tweaks necessary” task. With the click of a button, when using the right program, copying one meal or an entire day of meals already saved is quick and easy. Hand writing the same meal you ate on Monday into your Thursday log is just ridiculous and such a waste of time when you can just use the power of a computer and the right program to make this quick and almost painless.
The right program in my opinion will deliver enough details but not so many to make it confusing. The right details, the details that we can tweak to create the greatest results on the scale, include calories, carb grams, fat grams and protein grams per food, meal and day. Again, trying to get these details down on paper with pen is just painful.
The right program should be intuitive and easy to use. Be there no mistake logging foods at first is somewhat tedious but if you’ve got good guidance on what foods you are supposed to be eating and you’re using the right food-logging software the front-end work necessary to do it right is very manageable and some even find it fun – no kidding!
Maybe this next piece of criteria isn’t mandatory but I sure think it makes logging feel like it just might be worth it. That is the food-logging software should be part of a more comprehensive program that teaches you manageable, science-based guidelines for what to eat instead of just do-it-yourself logging whatever it is you think you should eat.
Finally, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a nutrition expert you could submit your logged days to for review, feedback and ultimately–approval? I think so. The problem with this is it normally costs an arm and a leg to work one-on-one with a nutrition expert who will take the time to review days and days of your food logs. In addition to expense another issue that arises is how do you get your logged days TO the nutrition expert? Do you print them out and take them in? Are you savvy enough to export them and attach them as an email? Is that option even available? Can your nutrition expert import what you exported and read what you gave him or her? Do you just use an online nutrition-logging tool and then give your nutrition expert your username and password so they can “go take a look?” Yuk, what a pain, no thanks. No thanks to any of the above to be honest.
Okay, here it comes. Hang on to your hat. You knew it was coming. Brace yourself. Can you feel the massive pitch coming? Don’t you just FEEL you’re about to be sold and sold HARD? Well relax, that’s just now how I operate.
As a part of LL University yes I programmed a software tool that I call the Nutrition Professor. I know it’s weird that I program the tools I ask my members to use. Weird that my expertise is really nutrition, exercise and weight-management but I program all the software my clients use too. I know–it really is kinda weird but it’s true. And while I’m thinking of it too I really need to change the name of the Nutrition Professor to the Menu Professor. That’s really more what it is. It’s a tool I programmed to make the process of logging foods easy, detailed enough, and with the option of personal, expert feedback for your days logged directly from me or other trained LL University Coaches.
Even though I know there are hundreds and hundreds of devices, software tools and websites for logging foods now, I don’t know of a single tool online that is attached, with one click by you, directly to the eyes of a nutrition expert–other than my Nutrition Professor.
Below is a video where I give a brief introduction into my Nutrition Professor.
I first created the Nutrition Professor in 1999 and 12 years later I continue to refine and improve it. But ultimately? It’s the personal feedback that makes my food-logging tool a key part of the success my members enjoy.
I’m not going to finish this article by saying “However you do it just make sure you log your foods for awhile.” No, the truth is I just don’t buy that any old logging will do. The truth is you need to log accurately, with enough detail in front of you, and with enough feedback and knowledge so that logging is meaningful and ultimately beneficial for making the scale behave. What good is logging if you ultimately don’t get the results you want? Not much–that’s for sure.
Instead I’ll close with a favorite quote of mine from Winston Churchill that goes “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” No matter what you’re doing right now, no matter if you log or don’t log, no matter what food-logging method you use or don’t use, make sure you accept that your results need to speak TO you because they definitely speak FOR you. Your results, or lack thereof, speak louder than anything you could ever possibly say with your mouth. If you are achieving your weight-loss goals as you like and if your way is working for you I sincerely mean it when I say “Congratulations! Good for you! And keep up the good work!” And I really mean that.
But if you’re struggling a bit more than you’d like and if you haven’t tried logging or logging my way with personal feedback available from an expert then give it a try and I look forward to helping you lose the weight, keeping it off, and getting to know you too.
Sources:
1. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov06/meal.size.calories.ssl.html
2. AJN, July 2011, Vol. 111, No. 7
3. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 35, Number 2
4. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 2011, 8:83
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