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This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin. This will just take a minute.

Dear diary: today I ate 3 carrot sticks while I fantasized about eating carrot cake. Alright, alright, I ate 3 pieces of carrot cake, and never once considered an actual carrot. How am I ever gonna lose that last 10 pounds? Well, new research shows that keeping a diary, a food diary, can help. According to a study published in the August issue of the Annals of Preventative Medicine, people who write down everything they eat each day lose twice as much as those who don’t. Nearly 1,700 people participated in the study. They were asked to follow a heart-healthy diet full of fruits and veggies and low-fat or non-fat dairy. They attended weekly group sessions and were told to engage in moderate exercise for half an hour a day. After 6 months, nearly 2/3 of the participants had lost at least 9 pounds. But the real surprise came from the food logs: those who simply kept track of what they consumed lost twice as much as those who failed to fess up. So next time you’re tempted¹ by the clarion² call of the carrot cake, stop to consider how that would look in your diary, not to mention on your hips³.

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Karen Hopkin.