Within‐Day Patterns of Self‐Monitoring Dietary Intake and Weight Loss in a Behavioral Weight Management Program

Objective Behavioral weight management programs (BWLPs) encourage participants to self‐monitor dietary intake daily, preferably throughout the day as eating/drinking occurs. Despite empirical support for daily self‐monitoring, little is known regarding within‐day patterns of self‐monitoring and their associations with weight loss. Methods Within‐day patterns of self‐monitoring and associations with weight loss were examined in 449 adults with obesity (mean ± SD age = 49.4 ± 11.4 years, BMI = 35.7 ± 4.0 kg/m 2 , 83.5% female, 23.4% Black or African American, 9.8% Hispanic) who enrolled in a 16 week BWLP and were asked to self‐monitor dietary intake daily using a smartphone app. Results K‐means cluster analysis resulted in four patterns: participants who primarily engaged in Minimal Logging ( n = 101), Backlogging ( n = 124), Logging one occasion/day ( n = 59), and Logging two or more occasions/day ( n = 165). There was not a difference in weight loss between Logging two or more occasions/day ( M ± SD; 9.1 ± 4.1%) and Logging one occasion/day (7.7 ± 4.7%), p = 0.219; however, both lost more weight than Backlogging (5.7 ± 4.1%) and Minimal logging (2.1 ± 3.4%), p s < 0.001. Moreover, 88.5% of Logging two or more occasions/day participants achieved clinically‐meaningful weight losses, compared to 71.2% of Logging one occasion/day , 55.6% of Backlogging , and 19.8% of Minimal Logging , all p s < 0.05. Conclusions Results support recommendations for daily (and, ideally, throughout‐the‐day) self‐monitoring of dietary intake. Future studies should investigate strategies to increase self‐monitoring adherence, including technological supports and lower‐burden tools.