Three steps to weight loss

There is no shortage of information out there aimed at helping you lose weight. There are diets (the live only by sucking prune seeds is a guaranteed success…except for the “live” part), there is surgery (why change your lifestyle when you can snip or cut seems to be the motto of the times), and there are even creams (if you believe in them I have some shares in a Martian agri-business that might also interest you). If you are looking for lasting weight loss though, a new study has found three sensible and accessible strategies that yield real effects.

To establish this the researchers recruited women who were aged between 50 and 75 who were overweight or obese and asked them about a wide variety of diet-related behaviours. The women were then followed and weighed over a twelve month period. The researchers reasoned that since in terms of weight loss total kilojoule intake seems more important than the composition of diet, it made sense to look at what behaviours might support kilojoule intake reduction.

The results of the analysis clearly showed three behaviours that led to significant greater weight loss than others.

For a start, those women who kept food journals lost an average 2.7 kilos more than women who did not. This did not have to amount to writing a small novella on your eating patterns. Just writing down what you are eating will mean that you pay attention to your food and kilojoule intake. Conscious eating is the first and essential step to weight loss.

Additionally, women who never skipped meals lost an average 3.6 more kilos than women who frequently skipped meals. This is probably because skipping meals leads to a preference for high calorie foods and can train the body to hold onto whatever energy it does get.

Lastly, women who had lunch “out” at least once a week lost at least 2.3 kilos less than women who ate out less frequently. It is likely that eating out is a barrier to making healthy food choices.

So there you have it; never miss a meal, eat at home, and keep a pen and paper on the dining table and the kilos will just fall away.