Personal Infoviz works: dieters lose more weight with food diaries

by phil on Tuesday Jul 8, 2008 2:28 PM

MSNBC - people who kept daily food diaries lost twice as much weight or more as those who didn’t keep a tally of their meals.

It's eye opening. In fact, some people will be so shocked at how many calories are in their thrice-daily Coke that the "aha" moment will make going on an actual diet unnecessary. Being forced to be aware of what you're eating can often be enough to help people drop weight, says Wadden.

I wonder what other things we can fix by keeping daily records. An e-mail from the office saying how many minutes of YouTube you used that day? A 24-7 webcam that measured how often you smiled that day?