The Best Tool for Weight Loss Costs Under a Dollar
Its not a dumbbell or a stability ball or a resistance cord, those are great fitness tools and can help build calorie burning muscle, but they cost more than a dollar and they are not as valuable alone as another tool. The best tool for weight loss is actually a memo pad which you can pick up for a dollar or less.
As reported on WebMD, a new study published in the August 2008 edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows keeping a food diary may be the key to losing extra weight. For six months, the 1,685 participants in the study kept food diaries and were encouraged to eat a healthy diet and be physically active. After six months, participants had shed almost 13 pounds, on average. The most powerful predictor of their weight loss was how many days per week they kept their food diary. Those who kept food records six days a week—writing down everything they ate and drank on those days—lost about twice as much weight as those who kept food records one day a week or less.
When your goal is weight loss it helps to be accountable to someone or something. If you write down everything you eat and drink each day, with calories for each item and total calories, two things happen. One, you are accountable to that notebook and subsequently to yourself. Two, when you write in it each day, with the calories, and stay active (walk briskly three to five times a week) you will see the number on the scale decline. Don’t skip any item, don’t lose a whole day, and don’t make it a burden, just write everything down daily. It works!
So in addition to the memo pad what else do you need? You need to know how many calories you should be consuming each day. Go to http://www.cookingnook.com/calorie-calculator.html and enter a few cells of information to find out. You also need to know how many calories are in the foods you eat. For this start with labels and pay close attention to the serving sizes. For foods without labels go to calorieking.com to find out the calories in almost anything you eat (hint: foods that are not packaged are generally healthier so try to eat fewer things with labels and those with fewer ingredients). There are also books you can pick up which have serving sizes and calories if you want to invest a few more dollars in yourself.
So you have your memo pad which you picked up for less than a dollar, you found out how many calories you should consume each day and you know where to find the calories in the foods you eat. What else? There is something else which you need that costs nothing but may be the hardest thing to come by, consistency! You need to write everything down, each day, with calories and total calories. We tend to eat the same things over and over so after a couple of weeks of tracking down items and calories this task will become very easy, that is, if you really want to reach your goal.
What do people do most often who don’t lose the weight they want to lose? They stop. They stop being active. They stop watching what they are eating. They stop eating treats in moderation. If someone told you that just by writing down what you eat each day, everyday, you could greatly improve your chances of success why not go pick up a memo pad, it costs less than a dollar!