by Susan Kristoff

Created on: November 09, 2009   Last Updated: November 12, 2009

The clinically successful Weight Watchers program uses the concept of portion control to help you become more aware of your eating habits and guide you towards making better choices. By becoming more aware of the food you eat, you can become more mindful of your food choices. One of the key activities for Weight Watchers members is to record what they eat each day in their weekly Points Tracker. Why is this deceptively simple activity so critical to weight loss success?

Staying on Program

Because Weight Watchers focuses on portion control and requires members to shoot for a daily Points target, the Tracker helps members to budget their Points for the day. If you track all of the food you eat, you'll know how many Points you have remaining for the day, and can make good meal and snack choices accordingly. Just like balancing your checkbook, your Tracker will tell you how many Points are left in your "bank". Your Tracker also helps you keep track of your Healthy Habits, such as eating fruits and vegetables, milk products, and whole grains, as well as ensure you drink water throughout the day. Also, by writing down the food that you eat every day, you can go back and review your eating habits over time. This can be particularly useful if you have a good stretch of weight loss, or if you hit a weight loss plateau. You can review what you ate and determine what you were doing right or wrong during that period.

Food Awareness

Weight Watcher leaders will tell you to track everything you eat, from meals and snacks to "bites" and "tastes". Many people eat without thinking about what they are eating. By writing down the foods that you eat, you are making yourself aware of your food choices. Seeing your choices on paper has a tendency to make you think, and perhaps make different choices. Have you ever calculated the Points values for a food, seen how many Points a choice was, then decided to make a different choice? By tracking your food, you are thinking about the choices you are making and the foods you are choosing to put into your body.

People who Track Lose More Weight

Studies have shown that people who keep a food diary or write down the food that they eat each day lose more weight than those who do not track the food that they eat. A study performed by Kaiser Permanente and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that keeping a "food diary" could potentially double your weight loss efforts. Study participants who tracked their food intake daily lost twice as much weight during the study period than participants who did not.

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