When it comes to losing weight, receiving motivational text messages could help tip the scale in your favor.
 

While prior research has warned that spending too much time hovering over your mobile phone is bad for your fitness, a small new study suggests an upside to the trend. Dieters in a Weight Watchers program who opted to receive motivational and reminder text messages lost around 4.5 pounds more in a 12-week period than those who didn't receive texts, according to a new study.

Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, published their findings in the journal CIN. The study is the first to isolate the effect of text messages on weight loss, lead author Claudia Bouhaidar said.

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Plus nearly 80 percent of the 28 participants said that text messages helped them adopt healthier habits, Mobihealthnews reports. Subjects received texts twice a week and they often involved an interactive component, such as responding "yes" or "no" to whether or not participants had tried a healthy snack tip. At the start of the study, subjects responded about 66 percent of the time, but that tapered off to 52 percent by the end of the study, Mobihealthnews reports.

Prior research also supports incorporating smartphones into your weight loss plan. Earlier this year, researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK created an app dubbed My Meal Mate to trial against a paper-based plan for tracking food intake and an online version. App users lost on average 10 pounds compared with 6.3 pounds for subjects who used a paper-based plan and 2.8 pounds for subjects who used an online diary.