Food Diary Key to Dieting Success Following Weight Loss Surgery

Following weight loss surgery, you’ll need to make changes to your diet to ensure you lose weight and successfully get all the nutrients and protein you need. An easy way to stay on track with your diet is with a food diary. Whether it’s through an online site or the old fashioned way with pen and paper, studies show that recording everything you eat each day boosts your chance for weight loss success.

Weight loss surgery, like lap-band surgery, changes the way your body absorbs nutrients. Following lap-band surgery, you’ll need to eat small portions, take small bites and chew your food thoroughly. This will reduce the risk of side effects like stomach irritation, swelling and vomiting. Because lap-band surgery makes your stomach smaller, and consequently you’ll be eating less than you are used to consuming, it’s more important than ever that the foods you do eat are rich in nutrients and lean-proteins. A food diary makes it easy to track your calories and nutrition in-take.

A 2008 research study found that patients who kept food diaries lost significantly more weight than those who did not. A food diary brings accountability to your daily diet. When you write down everything that you eat and drink you’ll quickly notice how calories can sneak into your day! Whether it’s afternoon snacking or a night out with friends, a food diary keeps you honest.

Thanks to a food diary, when you see where the extra calories are coming from, it’s easy to develop coping strategies. Hit by hunger pains in the afternoon? Carry pre-packaged, low-fat snacks with you. Overindulge on a night out with friends? Limit yourself to just one drink and ask your server to box up half your meal before serving it to you.

To make tracking your food (and weight loss!) even easier, consider one of the many applications available for your smart phone. These typically sync with an online account, so you can login from a computer or your phone to monitor your eating. Many also include helpful features that will let you know which nutrition areas you are falling short in (for example, not enough green vegetables, or too many starchy-based carbs) and will offer correction tips to help you stay on track.