New research suggests that stepping on a scale daily could help you lose weight, Medical Xpress reported.

Researchers at Cornell University found that frequent self-weighing and tracking results on a chart were effective for both losing weight and keeping it off, especially for men.

"You just need a bathroom scale and an excel spreadsheet or even a piece of graph paper," David Levitsky, senior author of the study and a professor of nutrition and psychology, said in a statement.

Contrary to popular belief, which insists that the scale can be a "source of stress and self-loathing" and weighing yourself daily can be counterproductive, this method forces people "to be aware of the connection between your eating and your weight," Levitsky said.

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from 162 volunteers. They were randomly separated into an intervention group and a control group. Individuals in the intervention group were first given a target of 1 percent weight loss, which they could lose in any manner they chose.

"Because we didn't prescribe, everyone found their own way of losing the weight," whether they reduced portion size, stopped snacking or skipped a meal, Levitsky said. Losing 1 percent of body weight requires most people to cut only about 150 calories a day for two weeks.

Once they maintained that weight loss for 10 days, the program then gave them a new target to lose another 1 percent, and so on. The goal was to lose a total of 10 percent of their starting body weight.

Based on the results, researchers believed that stepping on a scale and tracking one's weight acts as a reinforcement for some behaviors, such as eating less, and it strengthens others such as going for a walk in order to maintain body weight.

"We think the scale also acts as a priming mechanism, making you conscious of food and enabling you to make choices that are consistent with your weight," Levitsky said.

The findings are detailed in the Journal of Obesity.