We've all seen thousands of tips on ways to lose weight, from the Atkins Diet craze to 8 Minute Abs; Weight Watchers meetings to the unfortunate images of Richard Simmons and friends sweatin' to the oldies. But there's one rather low-tech tool that you probably never knew could be your best friend when it comes to weight loss: keeping a diary.

Yes, it seems that Bridget Jones had it right after all, though stalkerishly tracking your latest crush's every change of clothing isn't likely to make a dent in your dieting plans. However, researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research recently found that dieters who keep track of their daily calorie intake in "food journals" were likely to lose twice as much weight as those who didn't keep a record of their daily eating habits.

One of the subjects who took part in their study and maintained a food journal, 64-year-old Frank Blitzer, lost  26 pounds during the study, and has managed to keep 20 pounds off during the four years since. He credits his newfound healthy eating habits to the food journal that he wrote in during the course of the study: "It enabled me to see how much of an impact it made with even just a slight change in your diet, such as having a bowl of ice cream or a fast-food cheeseburger," he told ABC News. "That can really skew your calorie intake."

So how come keeping a food journal works so much better than any fad diet? According to experts like Dr. Patrick O'Neil, director of the Weight Management Center at the Medical University of South Carolina, "Most of us don't really know how much we eat and drink; we have very charitable memories."

By keeping track of all our meals in a daily food journal, we're held acccountable for that morning donut we might have otherwise forgotten about, forcing us to think about what we eat before we take a bite - and maybe take a pass on the Krispy Kremes next time they come around.

By Kathryn Hawkins