Blogging the ‘Write’ Way to Weight Loss For Some Dieters

When Roni No one set out to lose 70 pounds, she decided to blog about the experience. Her first posts were little more than the electronic equivalent of a note tacked to the refrigerator: They charted her weigh-ins and a few simple thoughts.

Now, five years later, she's dropped all the weight and her daily web journal, Just Roni, has blossomed into an active community of over 200,000 followers. For the past three years she's hosted the annual Fit blog in conference in her hometown of Baltimore.

No one said her blog has played a huge part in her successful weight loss. "That simple commitment of How to lose weight made a world of difference. Something happened. Something clicked," she said. "The goal of blogging weekly was something completely in my control. It was a conscious decision I made and I only had myself to blame if I didn't keep up with it."

Obviously,No one isn't the only weight loss blogger out there. As the nation has grown fatter, so has the number of people who blog about being fat. Though no group appears to be keeping tabs on the weight loss blogosphere, the website fitnessblogs.org lists nearly 500 diet and weight loss related web logs, the formal term for blogs.

Most weight loss blogs consist of daily musings, concerning everything from the struggle to shed the pounds, to the frustration of hitting a plateau, to the celebration of success. Some offer recipes, surveys and links to calorie-counting sites and support groups.

The reasons people -- mostly women it seems -- begin sharing their innermost thoughts about their outermost traits are varied. Alyssa Curran started The Double Chin Diary about a year and a half ago to give herself some accountability.

"I want to share what I'm doing with my audience, no matter how big or small, and I don't want to disappoint them," she said.

Fifty-year-old Gail Gedan Spencer focuses her blog, Shrinking Sisters, on working through some of the stickier situations that arise from trying to lose fifty pounds. For instance, if she feels an evening binge coming on, she tries to reach for the keyboard instead of a snack.

"I've shifted my blog writing time to 9:00 p.m. as a way to keep my hands and brain busy during the danger zone. When I do that I'm less likely to wonder what's going on in the kitchen," she said.

Gary Foster, a psychologist who is the director of the Center for Obesity research and Education at Temple University, said he suspected a lot of people blog about their weight loss to build a sense of community and find encouragement.

"Losing weight is really tough, so the more support someone can get the better," he said. "If blogging gives you a feeling of not doing it solo, it could be really helpful."

Spencer agreed. She said when she first started blogging she knew there had to be others just like her she could inspire -- and be inspired by.

"I am 50 with 50 pounds to lose. I realized I can't be the only one out there in that situation."

Spencer now has over 250 dedicated followers. She also said many of the best diet tips she's gotten have come from other bloggers.

But Foster warned that taking advice from blogger sites has a potential downside. "What's an expert opinion or not? You may read someone else's blog and take it as a fact. At minimum it may not be helpful; at worst may be harmful."

Foster does see a definite potential upside to blogging about weight loss, though. He said writing or reading a blog could be especially helpful for anyone who has been stigmatized because of their weight.

No one knows this better than Kenlie Tiggeman, the 32-year-old political strategist who fired up the blogosphere last year after she blogged about her experience getting kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being "too fat too fly" -- twice. By the morning after she posted her thoughts about the first incident, twitter had exploded with angry words for Southwest and her website Alltheweigh.com was flooded with messages of support. Within hours she got a call from Southwest headquarters, offering apologies and vouchers for free flights.

{Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/blogging-write-weight-loss-overweight-dieters/story?id=17341974}

The 10 Easiest and Most Effective Tips for Weight Loss

1. Stop Snacking

Snacking is the number one saboteur of weight loss. Period. Why? Because people just end up eating way too many calories when they’re constantly popping snacks into their mouths. The other problem is that most “snacks” are based on refined sugar — very calorie dense and not very satisfying. When’s the last time you felt full after eating that fun sized bag of candy? Mindless snacking is absolutely pointless and totally destructive to weight loss. Don’t do it.

2. Don’t Drink Liquid Calories

If snacking is the number one weight loss saboteur, then liquid calories are a close second. They pose the exact same problem: It’s just too easy to consume way too many calories when you’re guzzling down sugary drinks that don’t satiate you at all.

This includes sports drinks. Gatorade isn’t inherently bad, but the fact is that the vast majority of people do not need sports drinks. Unless you’re actually depleting your glycogen stores with more than 60 consecutive minutes of hard training, sports drinks of any kind are just not necessary. 

3. Limit Yourself to 3 Meals a Day Max

This relates to tip number 1. If you eat 3 meals per day or less, it’s muchharder to accidentally overeat. There’s a popular myth that one needs to eat every two hours to keep the metabolism roaring at full speed. Understand: That is completely false and unsubstantiated by science.

4. Eat slowly and Stop When You’re Approximately 80% Full

Most people simply need to eat less food how to lose weight, and that means not stuffing your gullet to the brim. Slow down, and stop eating when you’re 80% full, or satisfied. I firmly believe if everyone in America took just these 4 initial tips to heart, the vast majority of overweight people could lose what they need to.

5. Eat More Protein

For the most part, what you eat matters very little if calories are controlled for. The one exception is protein. Protein does three key things that can help with weight loss:

1. It keeps you fuller for longer
2. It’s metabolized less efficiently than either carbs or fat, meaning you can get away with eating more of it
3. It helps preserve lean muscle mass, thus helping a greater portion of weight loss come from body fat stores.

Science shows that these benefits cap out at around .8g protein per lb of body weight per day. I recommend trying to hit that daily mark as often as you can.

6. Eat More High Volume Foods

There’s something that’s unavoidable: Hunger always wins. It doesn’t matter if your dietary strategy is perfect on paper — if hunger becomes too ravenous, everyone will eventually cave to it. The solution? Focus on foods that are higher volume and keep you fuller for longer. High volume foods are usually healthier choices in general, too:

• fibrous green vegetables
• lean protein
• low fat dairy
• low sugar fruit
• potatoes, and other roots and tubers

[Source: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/the-10-easiest-and-most-effective-tips-for-weight-loss.html]