Have you been struggling to take off those last few pounds? Don't start another diet. Grab a pen and paper and get to work!

A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that "Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories."

Start by purchasing a small notebook you can carry with you and begin recording what you eat. Write down the time of day, what you ate, how much you ate and any calorie or fat information (if you know it). You may even want to record other information such as your mood (bored, tired, stressed, etc), were you eating alone or with others, and even your hunger level on a scale of 1-10 (1 = not hungry, 10 = ravenously hungry).

After you have collected a few days of information, begin to look for patterns in your eating habits. Do you always snack at night when everyone else has gone to bed? Where do you eat most of your meals - are you in front of the TV or computer or do you eat at the dining room table? Identify those times where you eat but you aren't necessarily hungry (i.e. any eating episodes that rate between a 1 and 5).

Other tips:
Record what you eat at the time of your meal or snack. By doing this you will increase the accuracy of your self-monitoring. If you wait until the end of the day to remember what you have eaten, it is very likely that you will have forgotten a few things or inaccurately estimated how much you have eaten.

Be as honest as possible. The sole purpose of self-monitoring is to allow you to understand where you can change your behavior and more importantly what you need to change.

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