"food diary" news and stories

If you're trying to lose weight this summer to fit into that very special bathing suit, you should consider keeping a food diary. A recent study from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research shows that maintaining a daily food diary doubles a person's weight loss. This recent discovery comes from one of the largest and longest running weight loss maintenance trials ever conducted.

Since more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, the results from this study seem crucial in helping Americans lose weight more easily. It's also worth noting that since African Americans have a higher risk of conditions aggravated by being overweight, including diabetes and heart disease, the research recruited 44 percent of its study participants from the African American community.

While it seems obvious that writing a daily account of our food intake will help us lose weight, we seem to forget it. Now, it's proven to work. I have to admit that on the rare occasions when I've kept a food diary, I was often shocked to see the laundry list of junk food I eat. Have you ever kept a food diary? If so, what were some of the foods you were surprised to see reoccurring in your daily diet?

About a month ago, New York magazine asked four members of the fashion community to keep track of what they ate during the go-go-go chaos known as Fashion Week. The magazine followed two models, a fashion show producer, and a fashion magazine editor and itt was surprising to see the diets of the models. Even more interesting was the fact that the magazine editor ate the least!

Since I also write for one of our sister blogs, Styledash, I went to LA's Fashion Week, which wrapped up at the end of last week, and since I'm a foodist at heart, I thought it would be fun to do the same thing to see what my diet would be like (good? bad? ugly?) during five days of fashionable frenzy: fashion shows, after parties, then blogging into the night.

Think a fashion magazine editor doesn't eat much during Fashion Week? How about a food blogger...

DAY ONE
7:15 AM - Two cups of coffee and half a croissant while blogging at my desk.
11:15 AM - Three hard-boiled eggs sprinkled with soy sauce and sriracha (yes, it's delicious) before heading off to opening day.
4:00 PM - Prunes and dried apricots that I brought with me in my purse and bottled water.
9:45 PM - Greek salad I made at home (one of my favorite salads, so I try to keep the ingredients on hand all the time) and 1½ glasses of Syrah while blogging at my desk.