The Easy Alternative To Calorie Counting

Calorie counting for some people conjures up the image of slavish devotion to a diet.  It evokes image of time consuming effort in order to track your every bite of food.  This form of behavior change has been proven to be effective, however, because of its difficulty many people quit before they lose the weight necessary.  However, the idea of maintaining a record of your eating does seem to have potential as a dietary intervention.
The simple solution to this problem is to take photos of all food you consume.  This record serves some of the same behavior purposes as the food diary.  The reason it is useful is because knowing that you have to log your food can subtly influence your decisions.  Taking photographs “raised the awareness of their diets…the act of photographing altered behaviour for some because it forced them to think about their food choices” (Zepeda and Deal 696).  The evidence suggests that being forced to log and evaluate your food choices in this manner made many people change their diets.

This can become even more powerful if you upload these pictures to dropbox, or social media where you can have trusted friends make sure that you are sticking to your goals.

This is a case where simplicity makes the weight loss that much more simple.  We want weight loss and lifestyle changes to  be as easy as possible.

References:

Zepeda, Lydia, and David Deal. “Think before You Eat: Photographic Food Diaries as Intervention Tools to Change Dietary Decision Making and Attitudes.” International Journal of Consumer Studies 32.6 (2008): 692-98. Web.