Eleven weeks ago 41 of our boot campers stepped on the scale for our Biggest Loser weigh in. We did a 10 weeks contest, ending right before spring break. We divided into 3 teams with Mike, Bean and I being team leaders. We had prizes for the winning team as well as the overall male and female winners. Everyone paid $5.00 which was split between the winning team.

We encouraged food journals and had special workouts on the weekends to help with everyone’s success. I can’t speak for the other teams, but I only had a few that turned in food journals. Not surprising, these were the people that lost the most weight.

During our weigh in last week, I asked each and everyone who had lost a significant amount of weight in the 10 weeks, what their “secret” was. Well, here it is.

They wrote down what they ate and added more exercise to their week!

Even people that eat “healthy” found that they were overeating once they started writing down what they ate. People who were undereating also found that writing down their food intake helped get them on track.

Those who come to boot camp two or three times a week found that adding another day or two of some type of cardio was just what they needed to get the scale moving again.

Normally I would tell you to stay off of the scale, but since we were doing a contest with a lot of people, we needed a simple measuring tool.

I too found that when I was writing down what I ate, which is pretty simple, I started dropping fat. I started slacking off during the last two weeks of the contest, only keeping a food journal once every few days, and my weight loss stopped.

Once you can get into the habit of writing down your food intake, seeing what normal servings are, finding out which foods should be eaten in moderation and which foods are not worth eating because of the high amount of calories, then you may find you can stop keeping a journal.

There are several great food journals out there. I like www.calorieking.com. Some of my clients prefer www.sparkpeople.com. There is also www.fitday.com.

So, our little contest proved again what I have preached all along. In order to lose weight (fat) you need to eat right and exercise. You won’t know if you are eating right until you write it down and keep track of what it is you are eating.

Exercise should be done at least 5 days a week.

Before you fork out money on another diet program or weight loss supplements, try my free and simple solution to fat loss; a food journal and hard exercise at least 5 days a week.

Congratulations to MY team for winning our Biggest Loser contest. Congratulations to John T and Lisa C for having the most weight loss. Congratulations to everyone who stuck out the 10 weeks and saw some great results.

We will do this again.