020813 Save money, eat better and weigh less

Save money, eat better and weigh less

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer research Center in Seattle recently studied 123 overweight or obese postmenopausal females. The results of the study published in The Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Diabetes listed four strategies for losing weight and keeping it off. The most important one was keeping a food journal.

Maintaining a daily food and drink journal showed a strong correlation to greater weight loss for those in the study. The women in the study who did keep one lost approximately six pounds more over the year than those who did not keep a journal.

They also found that those who ate dinner, the noon meal, at home or brown bagged at work not only saved money but lost weight as well. Eating at home and creating your own daily brownbag dinner’s gives you control over the amount of sodium, sugar, and carbohydrates that you are putting into your body. The simple fact of preparing your own meal raises your awareness of what you are eating and encouraging you to make a more nutritious meal.

Another strategy that successful women used to lose and then keep the weight off was by not skipping meals. Even though it sounds counterintuitive, skipping a meal makes you hungry and less able to make good food decisions when it finally comes time to eat. The majority of the women who reported consistently skipping meals lost nearly 8 pounds less a year than the women who did not skip meals. That is nearly a pound a month of weight they could have lost had they not skipped those meals.

The women in the group who ate their dinner in a restaurant at least once a week averaged five fewer pounds when compared to those who did not eat out.

“These findings suggest that a greater focus on dietary self-monitoring, home prepared meals, and consuming meals at regular intervals may improve twelve-month weight loss among postmenopausal women enrolled in a dietary weight loss intervention.”

It appears that if you are serious about losing your weight you will want to include these tips in your strategy.