You can’t measure what you don’t track is a statement many of us are familiar with. We all track various aspects of our busy lives: work projects, school assignments, and even our finances. So why not apply tracking principles to your weight loss strategy? If you are looking for an easy way to drastically improve your chances of meeting weight loss goals, it’s accurately tracking your progress. Here are a 3 helpful ways that you can begin to track (or improve your existing tracking) to set you on the path to weight loss success.
Watch Your Weight
Experts say that stepping on the scale frequently is critical to weight-loss success. Studies have found that people who weigh themselves less than once a week do not lose weight. Weighing yourself regularly can mentally reinforce accountability, and give you motivation to meet your goals. You don’t need a fancy scale, but you should consistently use the same scale every time and document your results in order to track them over time. Some high-tech scales now come with extensive fitness tracking and BMI calculators that sync with apps/websites. Use whatever works with your lifestyle and budget, but use something constantly and consistently!
Follow Your Fitness
Tracking your physical activity not only gives you a goal-oriented approach to exercise, but more importantly – it allows you to see your daily improvement! As you walk more, run more, or lift more weights, you will inevitably get better at it; and tracking gives you a visual snapshot of that progress. You can track your physical activity using pen and paper logs, or you can invest in one of the many fitness devices and apps available. The amazing thing about fitness technologies is that they can often quantify the details of your workout directly into calories burned, so you’ll know exactly your energy expenditure for the day!
Document Your Food
The most important tracking you should be doing is of the food you are eating. Recording both how many calories you are consuming, as well as the macros. Using a food journal is a good idea, and many easy-to-use resources exist that allow you to select what you ate from a database of food that will automatically tally up the nutritional content of your meals! This is especially convenient when you have eat out at restaurants, or eat foods that don’t have nutrition labels attached. Tracking your food is important for two reasons:
1) It can be so easy to forget what you eat throughout the day! Tracking it all gives you a documented ledger that you can reference, and use to strategize about how to improve your eating habits. Visualizing your daily food intake gives you a better sense of how much you’re eating and the value of those foods, allowing you to think more critically about the choices you make. You may start to see patterns in your eating that you never noticed before!
2) Having a mindful record makes you think about food in a very different way. Your eating habits become more intentional, and so you begin to make more thoughtful choices about what to consume. Knowing the content (and consequences) of foods means you will also be able to better understand what it will take to burn those calories. Is eating that piece of chocolate cake worth 2 hours at the gym? You’ll eventually find yourself consuming fewer calories and making healthier choices.
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