Want to lose weight? Get on the scales EVERY DAY! Consistent self-monitoring 'helps you shift pounds and keep them off'

  • Daily weigh-ins help people achieve weight loss, according to a new study
  • Monitoring their weight allows people to see what affect their diet is having
  • Participants who weighed themselves daily also avoided overeating
  • Those people reported feeling confident to avoid temptation, study found
  • That's because they were more aware of the consequences of overeating 

The key to losing weight is as simple as weighing yourself everyday, experts have revealed.

Diet and exercise are vital components to weight loss.

But without monitoring your weight, it's difficult to understand the impact of your changed behavior, scientists said.  

For instance, if a person is dieting but not seeing any budge on the scale, self-monitoring their weight may show them that they need to make additional changes.

Furthermore, a new study found that people who routinely monitor their weight feel more confident about their diet and are more likely to avoid overeating.  

Dr Heewon Lee Gray, a behavioral nutritionist at Columbia University, told Daily Mail Online: 'Instead of just doing the diet and physical activity, if you can understand how it changes over time in terms of weight, it helps people better understand how their behavior affects their weight.'

Scientists revealed that weighing yourself each day is the key to weight loss. People who weigh themselves are more aware of the impact that their diet and physical activity have on their body

The new study, presented at a recent American Heart Association conference, discovered that self-weighing caused people to feel better equipped to actually lose weight.

Led by Boston College scientists, the study followed 148 people over a 12-month period.

The study participants were grouped according to three self-weighing patterns.

The first group included consistent self-weighers, which meant that they weighed themselves at least six days a week.

The second group included those who decreased their weigh-ins from four to five days a week, down to two days per week.

The last group included those who decreased their weigh-ins from five or six days a week - down to zero.

The scientists also assessed the participants' self-efficacy at six and 12 months.

At those times, the participants rated their confidence to avoid eating under various conditions.

Those conditions included instances in which they had negative emotions, availability of food, social pressure, physical discomfort and positive activities. 

The greater the total score, and score for each condition, the higher the self-efficacy rating.

The study found that the consistent group had significant increases in all five conditions, as well as the total score.

In contrast, the other two groups had no change over time.

Thus, the study concluded that people who are trying to lose weight and consistently weigh themselves feel better equipped to handle situations that would otherwise trigger them to overeat. 

A new study found that people who consistently weigh themselves also feel better equipped to handle situations in which they would otherwise overeat

Dr Gray, who wasn't involved in the study, told Daily Mail Online that people tend to feel more confident about their eating when they regularly weigh themselves.

She said that those people 'gain confidence because if they do some type of modification on their behavior, they know how their weight is going to change'.

Self-regulating thus causes 'their self-efficacy and confidence to go up'. 

However, while Dr Gray believes that self-weighing can be beneficial, she cautions against losing too much weight.

Dr Gray said: 'Monitoring weight is good, but if you go on a diet that is not healthy or you are restricting your calories, then that is not healthy in the long run.'

She noted that there are many smartphone apps out today that can help people track how many calories they are consuming, in addition to how many calories they are burning.