Writing in a food journal has been shown to have a positive effect toward reaching your weight loss goals. Expressing positive thinking through a writing exercise also has an impact on reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, according to a new study. Researchers found that women who wrote about values that are most important to them lost more weight than others who did not.
Values, self-esteem and weight loss
Your secret weapon for weight loss may simply be pen and paper. Taking 15 minutes a day to write down your thoughts as you reflect on what matters most to you in life made a significant difference in a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study used women because research suggests they are more vulnerable to weight-related stress.
When it comes to weight loss, “How we feel about ourselves can have a big effect,” said Christine Logel of Renison University College at the University of Waterloo, who co-wrote the study with Geoffrey L. Cohen of Stanford University. “Maybe when one of the women who wrote about an important value went home that night, she felt good about herself and didn’t eat to make herself feel better. Then the next day snacking wasn’t as much of a habit, so she skipped it. Over a few months, that could make a real difference in her life.”
Writing and the waistline
To explore the effect of writing on the waistline, researchers recruited 45 undergraduates. None were considered thin and about 60 percent were overweight or obese based on BMI. Each woman’s weight was recorded. They were then given a list of values, such as creativity, politics, music and relationships. The women were asked to rank the values in importance. Half the group was instructed to write for 15 minutes daily about the value they ranked as most important. The rest were told to write about why a lesser value on their list may be important to others.
Four months later, the women were weighed again. The group writing about the values most important to them lost an average of 3.4 pounds. The others had gained an average of 2.7 pounds. The results suggest that it’s possible to combat emotional eating by using positive thinking as an appetite suppressant.
The daily food journal
In addition to reflecting on important values, writing down the details of your meals has been shown to make a positive difference in weight loss efforts. A Kaiser Permanente study found that people who kept daily food diaries lost twice as much weight or more as those who didn’t keep a food journal.
About 1,700 participants agreed to exercise and adopt a healthy diet. Those who volunteered to keep a written record of their diet had a profound advantage. Overall, two-thirds of all participants lost nine pounds or more in six months. But those who kept a daily food diary lost more than twice as much–up to 20 pounds.
Keeping a food journal aided weight loss by showing participants where extra calories came from, as well as helping them recognize hidden calories in familiar foods. A typical comment from diary keepers was that they would avoid such things as chocolate cake because they didn’t want to see it recorded in their food diary.
When it comes to weight loss, self-integrity is very important. The combination of a food diary and personal reflection on important values could be the daily exercise in self-integrity that not only helps you lose weight, but keep it off as well.
Source: Science Daily, Daily Mail, MSNBC