DIET DIARY: A recent study showed that keeping an honest, accurate record of food and drink doubled dieters' success rate. Losing even a small amount of weight—as little as five pounds in some cases—can substantially reduce the risk of developing hypertension.

Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., conducted the study with 1,700 overweight or obese men and women. One of the co-authors, Victor J. Stevens, PhD, said that participants who kept a record of what they ate while following other weight-loss recommendations lost twice as much as participants who didn't keep a food diary.

Study Participants Tracking Food, Drink Lost 18 Pounds in 20 Weeks

Stevens and colleagues will publish their study results in the August issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Here's what happened during their study:

# Participants:	1,700
Average Weight at Study Start:	212 pounds
Average Weight Loss after 20 Weeks by Participants NOT Keeping Food Diary:	9 pounds
Average weight loss after 20 Weeks by Participants KEEPING Food Diary:	18 pounds

Food Diaries Only One Aspect of Successful Weight Loss Program

In addition to keeping food diaries, participants in the study were asked to...

• attend weekly support group meetings where they turned in their food diaries,
• do at least 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise a day, and
• follow the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet (see sidebar).

Honesty Important When Keeping Food Diaries

Food diaries only work, though, when people write down exactly what they've had to eat and drink immediately after consumption.

"The trick is to write down everything you eat or drink that has calories, [even if it's] one gallon of vanilla ice cream, three pizzas and a gallon of milk," Stevens said.

"My experience is that the people who have the courage to write it down tend to do pretty well," Stevens said. "The more food records they kept, the more they lost." (The Washington Post, 7/9/08)

Losing Weight Reduces Risk of Hypertension, Other Diseases

More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. While various researchers continue to study possible genetic causes for obesity, doctors agree that it increases your health risk for many illnesses.

Being overweight is the main cause of hypertension, for example, a serious condition that can lead to any or all of the following:

• diabetes
• heart disease
• high cholesterol
• stroke

According to Stevens, losing as little as five pounds can decrease the risk of developing hypertension by 20%.

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Question for Readers:

Have you ever kept a food diary to help you lose weight or uncover food allergies? How well did it work for you?