Keeping track of what you eat may not only help you shed kilos, but also prevent regaining the lost weight, a new study has claimed.
The study by researchers at University of Pittsburgh in the US found that stopping food tracking is linked to regaining weight.
According to the study, to prevent regaining weight, people should make an effort four months after starting a diet to refocus on food tracking.
The researchers found that people tend to stop dietary monitoring after about four months, and that this was followed by regaining weight, said Qianheng Ma, a public health researcher at the University of Pittsburgh.
They looked at data from 137 people who had participated in a one-year weight loss intervention called EMPOWER. The majority of the people in the study were white women.
The participants were, on average, 51 years old and had a body mass index (BMI) of 34.1. They were asked to weigh themselves regularly with a digital scale that uploaded data in real time and to monitor their diet using a smartphone app.
Although everyone in the study initially lost weight, nearly three-quarters of the people in the study ultimately regained some of that weight, 'Live Science' reported.
In addition, 62 per cent of the participants stopped tracking what they were eating at some point during the study.
The researchers found that a greater percentage of the people who regained weight had stopped tracking what they ate, compared with those who were able to maintain their weight.
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