Nutrition Frenzy

Bet you never knew that a pen could be your best weight loss tool.

It’s true. In one of the largest and longest weight loss maintenance trials ever conducted, the more food records that dieters kept, the more weight they lost.

Scribble for Success
Simply jotting down what you eat seems like an easy price to pay for fewer pounds. The people in the study also followed the DASH diet, attended weekly group sessions, and exercised for at least 30 minutes a day. After 6 months, the people who had also kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who did not keep track — probably because the food journals encouraged people to reflect on what — and how much — they’d eaten. Here are some tips on what to include in your food journal.

Crushing Your Urge to Splurge
In addition to keeping a food journal, give these other resist-temptation tricks a try:
Balance your plate with lean protein, high-fiber carbs, and healthy fats.

Follow these four simple breakfast rules to curb late-day munchies.

4 Simple Breakfast Rules for Shedding Pounds

Four simple rules could turn your breakfast into a cravings crusher, pound shedder, and mood booster.

It’s all about timing and balance, according to Dr. Kathleen DesMaisons, author of Potatoes, Not Prozac.

One, Two, Three, Four . . .
Here are DesMaisons’s four simple rules for using breakfast to counterbalance the biochemical mechanisms behind sugar cravings, obesity, and depression.

1-Do it daily. Your goal is to make it a daily, automatic habit. The reward? You can kiss late-day low blood sugar and sugary snack cravings goodbye — permanently.
2-Do it sooner rather than later. For the best results, eat breakfast within an hour or so of waking up — even if you’re not hungry. Morning-time low blood sugar produces a brain chemical designed to mask hunger pangs — but can cause sugar cravings later in the day.
3-Make it complex. We’re talking complex carbohydrates here (whole-grain cereals, steel-cut oats, high-fiber fruits, etc.) The fiber keeps blood sugar on an even keel and helps you feel full longer.
4-Power it with protein. Protein slows digestion, helps prevent spikes and dips in blood sugar, and can even give you a dose of depression-fighting tryptophan. DesMaisons recommends that you get a third of your daily protein at breakfast.

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