Weight loss: what works and what doesn’t
The Hartford Courant this past week has an interesting article on what does and doesn’t work for weight loss progress in terms of food portion control and tracking.
What doesn’t work? According to a recent study, just because you have something like a PDA handy to track what you eat doesn’t mean you will be eating better or lose weight faster. In fact, experts say that planning ahead what you’ll be eating and portion sizes is what really helps.
So what does work? Planning and portion control, experts say.
In a University of Pittsburgh study, researcher Rena Wing gave participants pre-measured food portions, similar to what some diet plans including NutriSystem, Jenny Craig and Slim-Fast do. The approach “worked better than counting your own calories,” Harvey-Berino notes.
But if you are like me and pale at the thought of controlling portions by eating low-cal frozen dinners ’till the end of time, there is hope, researchers say, as long as you plan your meals ahead of time. There are a number of online programs that can help you do this with relative ease.
Here are the websites tested and how they stacked up for ease of planning meals:
FitDay (www.fitday.com). This site generates lots of pie charts to examine what you’re eating and burning. There’s a nifty feature to customize your food, so you can tweak some of the standard calorie counts to better represent what you’re eating. What I didn’t like: Type in a simple food - oatmeal - and you have to wade through five pages of listings for oatmeal bread, oatmeal cookies and more just to find that plain old oatmeal.
Nutridiary (www.nutridiary.com). Short on time? This site offers a guest feature that lets you use it immediately without registering first. It’s a quick way to see how you like planning meals ahead of time. It also provides good information for first-time users. Another feature: You can turn off all ads on the site.
NutritionData (www.nutritiondata.com). Like technical information? NutritionData not only records food, but also will guide you to better choices with its Caloric Ratio Pyramid, Nutrient Balance Indicator and Nutritional Target Map. Or plug in your own recipes and NutritionData will calculate the calories and nutrients for you. To use this feature, however, you’ll need to spend some time recording each ingredient in your own personal online “pantry.”
SparkPeople (www.sparkpeople.com). This site asks for a lot of information before you get started, but that allows you to consider both your food and fitness goals. It sets daily limits on calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein and water based on your goals. It also allows you to add up to 75 other nutrients to track, such as fiber, cholesterol, sodium and more, making it a good option for those who have special dietary or health needs.
