When looking for ways to lose weight, popular consensus is that you should keep a food journal and write down everything you eat during the course of each day and practice portion control by using measuring cups, weight scales and spoons to serve your food.

Have these methods helped any of you lose weight?

Do you think these are realistic to implement in everyday life, or do you have other methods that have worked for you?

I may hate keeping track of what I eat and measuring our portion sizes, but the reality is that it makes a difference. I like to use online programs to keep food journals, partly because I'm motivated by the cool graphics and charts for my progress!

Yes Lynn... I agree. I keep a food journal and I measure too. I have found a couple of really good online journals and some even let you track your blood sugars at the same time. Those are REALLY useful tools! And I love the progress graphics too. Makes the whole process of journaling a lot more fun, doesn't it?! One can really learn a lot about how their eating habits are affecting their weight by keeping a food journal. My biggest gripe about doing it online is that it is time and energy intensive. I find that I frequently just don't seem to be able to keep up with the online journaling every time I put something in my mouth. I finally broke down and just bought me a little spiral to use. It is so much quicker and easier to just jot it down whenever I sit down to eat something. And it is small enough that I can carry it with me if I am away from home. Of course you don't get all the useful information that the online journals give. But even just doing this much is helpful. Something about just purposefully taking note of what I am eating and how much I am eating helps me keep an accurate perspective. Sometimes when I find my weight loss is not progressing or even worse when I see weight creeping back on, I go back and look at previous food journals to see what I was eating during a successful period. It sounds silly to say it, but I've been surprised before to discover how much my perspective can change over time on food choices and portion size. It happens so gradually, I guess, that I really don't notice it until the scale starts speaking to me and I go back and look at my eating habits in print.

And measuring... yes, it can be a pain... especially when you first start. But I have learned that I just can't trust my eyes to judge a portion. LOL. Now anyone who spends time every day measuring things will tell you that you eventually reach a point where you know what half a cup looks like, you know what a teaspoon looks like, you know what an ounce looks like. And you can get VERY good at estimating those... even right on... without actually measuring each and every time. And this comes in very handy when you are eating with someone at their house or in a restaurant or wherever you happen to be where you can't really whip out your scale and measuring cups. LOL. But you have to spend the time learning it in the beginning. And I find that I have to go back to the scale and the cups on a fairly regular basis just to make sure my "calibration" is still accurate and hasn't "drifted"... either in the too much direction OR in the too little direction! (Yep... that happens too! Can't be starving yourself! Need to keep up good nutrition.)

To get serious about my weight loss and be successful over the long haul, I just have to keep track and know exactly what I am eating. I hope one day to have my weight and my eating habits under control to the point where I won't have to be so fastidious, to have developed healthy eating habits that are just a natural part of life. I don't like having to constantly think about what I am putting in my mouth... but this is where I am in life. In the middle of the battle is not the time to play loose and sloppy.

I, too, am a food journal type of person. I also use a scale to measure chicken and other meats, because I tend to misjudge those quite often. I agree that while it seems like a burden to do these things, it is necessary, at least in the beginning, to learn how to get an eye for the portion sizes you should be eating. I also use my daughter's kid-sized plates for my dinners instead of the big old restaurant sized ones the rest of my family uses. That seems to keep me on track when I'm eating dinner at home, as that is the meal that I tend to "pig out" on the most.