Healthy Lifestyle Tip: Got 10 minutes? Double Your Results
That’s all you may need to double your weight loss and triple the
odds you’ll stick with that new routine. A pile of recent studies proves
that simply writing down your daily progress in a journal makes a huge
difference in the numbers on your scale and your tape measure.
Australian women and men who started a new exercise program were
three times more likely to work out five days a week if they logged each
session. Out of nearly 1,700 people on a 6-month weight loss program,
those who kept a daily food journal lost twice as much weight as those
who didn’t keep a journal.
The researchers who led the study say jotting a few words on a sticky
note, or sending yourself an email or text message about what you ate
for lunch or how long you walked, works perfectly well. Tracking works
by making you aware of what you’re really doing, by holding you
accountable, and by giving you a psychic pat on the back when you’re
doing the right thing (and a kick in the pants when you’re not).
New research suggests that some basic do’s and don’ts can make it work better:
Be honest. Go ahead; write down that embarrassing cookie binge or the fact that you skipped your walk to watch the game.
Keep it simple. People who switched from detailed food-and-exercise
diaries to simple lists where they just checked off the size of their
meals and the minutes they worked out lost just as much weight as those
who wrote reams.
Choose your medium. Paper? Computer? iPad? Choose your format. In one
study of dieters, those who picked their own system were 50 percent
more likely to record their food and twice as likely to record their
exercise as those who were told which format to use.
Snap a picture. Using your cell phone to photograph a meal before you
dig in may work even better than writing down what you ate, a Wisconsin
study suggests. Just pausing to look at the picture can be enough to
make you shove aside the fries and eat every leaf of the salad.
It’s the little things that can lead to a success story.
Source: realage.com
Two great online trackers: My Fitness Pal And Spark People Both are free and have mobile apps to track while on the go!
To Your Success!
Samantha Bush
