Keeping a food diary or simply thinking about the taste of your last meal can aid with weight loss and help people stay on track when dieting, according to a new study conducted at the University of Birmingham in the UK.

Remember more, eat less
Female participants were asked to write a description of their lunchtime meal, whereas another group of females didn't write anything. Afterwards they were monitored for how much they snacked and it was found that the women who had written their meal descriptions ate less cookies than those who hadn't written.

How conclusive this study was, it's hard to say, but it's been found that keeping note of what you eat can seriously help people to lose weight, with one study claiming that subjects doubled their weight loss by keeping a food diary.

Food diaries for weight loss
Jack Hollis from Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Oregon, US, and colleagues from several other nutrition and research institutions across the US, carried out research into the use of food diaries as an effective weight-loss tool, as part of a larger 6 month weight loss trial.

The study involved 1,685 middle-aged men and women from four U.S. cities – Portland, Oregon; Baltimore, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The average age 55 and all participants were overweight; with a Body Mass Index of between 25-45 and most were on medication to reduce their blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

It was found that among those participants who kept a regular food diary for 6 or 7 days a week their average weight loss was 18lbs and among those who didn't keep a diary, the loss was just 9lbs.

Dr Victor Stevens from the research centre in Portland found the results encouraging: « For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique. »

Outside contributing factors
It must be noted that the participants were on a 6 month preliminary trial to monitor weight loss and that this included a calorie-controlled diet and an exercise programme. The researchers stress that although we can draw a positive conclusion from the study, there could have been other factors affecting weight loss other than the food diaries.