Weight Loss: The Real Secret
Weapon
It’s not a
pill.
It’s not a
diet.
It’s really quite simple. Keeping a
daily exercise and
nutrition journal
is the true
secret weapon.
That’s right. A
daily exercise and
nutrition journal
can
double a person's weight loss
according to a study from
Kaiser
Permanente's Center for Health Research.
 The findings, from one of the largest and longest running weight
loss maintenance trials ever conducted, was published in the August issue of the
American
Journal of Preventive Medicine.
"The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost,"
said lead author
Jack Hollis
Ph.D.,
a researcher at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland,
Oregon. "Those who kept daily food records
lost twice as
much weight
as those who kept no records.
“It seems that the simple act of writing down what you
eat encourages people to consume fewer calories."
After six months, the average weight loss among the nearly
1,700
participants
was approximately
13 pounds.
More than two-thirds of the participants (69 percent) lost at least nine pounds,
enough to reduce their health risks and qualify for the second phase of the
study, which lasted 30 months and tested strategies for maintaining the weight
loss.
"More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. If we
all lost just nine pounds, like the majority of people in this study did, our
nation would see vast decreases in hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes,
heart disease and stroke," said study co-author
Victor Stevens,
Ph.D.,
a Kaiser Permanente researcher. For example, in an earlier study Stevens found
that losing as little as five pounds can reduce the risk of developing high
blood pressure by 20 percent.
The Kaiser Permanente Care Management Institute's Weight
Management Initiative has recommended maintaining an
exercise and nutrition
journal
as a strategy for losing weight since 2002. The Weight Management Initiative
unites clinicians, researchers, insurers, and policymakers to identify
practical, effective, non-surgical approaches for the prevention and treatment
of overweight and obesity.
"Every day I hear patients say they can't lose weight. This
study shows that most people can lose weight if they have the
right tools
and
support.
And food journaling in conjunction with a weight management program or class is
the ideal combination of tools and support," says Keith Bachman, MD, a Weight
Management Initiative member.
Funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the
National Institutes of Health, the study is one of the few studies to recruit a
large percentage of African Americans as study participants (44 percent).
African Americans have a higher risk of conditions that are aggravated by being
overweight, including diabetes and heart disease. In this study, the majority of
African American participants lost at least nine pounds of weight, which is
higher than in previous studies.
The study, coordinated by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health
Research in Portland, also was conducted at Duke University Medical Center,
Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and Johns Hopkins University. In addition
to Hollis and Stevens, the Kaiser Permanente research team included William M.
Vollmer, Ph.D.; Cristina M. Gullion, Ph.D.; Kristine Funk, M.S.; and Daniel
Laferriere, MR. Other study co-authors included Phillip J. Brantley, Ph.D. and
Catherine M. Champagne, Ph.D. at Pennington; Jamy D. Ard, MD, at the University
of Alabama at Birmingham; Thomas P. Erlinger, MD, MPH, at the University of
Texas; Lawrence J. Appel, M.D., and Arlene Dalcin at Johns Hopkins; Pao-Hwa Lin,
Ph.D., and Laura P. Svetkey, MD, at Duke University; Carmen Samuel-Hodge, Ph.D.
from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Catherine M. Loria,
Ph.D., at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and National Institutes
of Health.
What's Inside the Daily Exercise & Nutrition Journal
Forms and Information / Front of Journal
Logging Pages / Middle of Journal
Checklists / Forms / Foods List
/ Back of
Journal
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