Helpful Dieting Tools

Sally Squire of the Washington Post, wrote about a study that was done on just over 1500 men and women 25 years and up. All were very overweight with complications that come with that such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

People lost enough weight to reduce those health problems, simply by learning about nutrition, having a support network through weekly meetings with others, and most importantly writing down everything they ate in a day. Fitday.com (free with option to purchase one's own program) is a great way to plug in foods eaten to get the nutritional analysis. It's more fun than doing it on paper or keeping a written journal.

It seems keeping journals (either on paper or online) and writing down what one eats is a valuable tool to learning what works and what doesn't. I think it would be helpful to put one's weight next to each day as well. Another helpful tool is to graph one's weight loss. Graphing gives a very vivid picture of the weight loss journey. Journals can also keep tabs on exercise routines, as well as recording whether water intake was good.