
1. Keep a food diary.
Recording everything—the ice cream binge as well as the carrots and celery—“makes everything you eat part of the plan,” says Elena Ramirez, Ph.D., co-founder of the Vermont Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy in South Burlington, Vermont. “It’s no longer a sneaky bad thing.” Keeping track of your calories can help you lose weight, too, as it helps tip you off to behaviors that lead to weight gain. A daily food diary, in fact, is an integral part of The EatingWell Diet (Countryman, 2007).