Okay, don’t let the word “journal” scare you.  You can call it a food log if that helps.  SparkPeople calls it a “Nutrition Tracker”, but no matter how you slice it up, the key to effective weight loss is keeping an account of everything that goes into your body. 

An article I read on Yahoo today, discusses a recent study done by researchers in the U.S. that included 1,685 middle-aged men and women.  The study found that over a span of 6 months, those who kept a food journal almost everyday lost about twice as much weight as those who did not.  Can we say, wow?  Those aren’t small numbers.  That’s a huge difference.  And I think I know why.

I can say that for myself, keeping a food journal has made all the difference in the world with my weight loss.  When I originally lost my first 30 pounds in 2007, I kept a food journal.  Then my diet went on hiatus for 6 months during our move to NC.  Once I finally jumped back into diet and exercise, I figured I already had the “knowledge” of what foods I could and could not eat.  I had already kept a food journal for 6 months and I was not going to do it again.  I was being lazy because I didn’t want to deal with it and I thought I already knew what I was doing. 

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