Set Your Goals and Track Your Progress

---

Self-monitoring combines nutritional awareness, exercise, and self-weighing as a collective strategy for losing weight and keeping it off for the long haul. This requires developing skills to record details with deliberate attention to daily details. In early weight loss studies, an individual’s self-monitoring only involved tracking changes in a paper diary, which is a simple activity that has long been associated with a scientific approach for weight loss by recording what was eaten.

When the frequency of self-monitoring of diet and exercise was measured in studies, there was significant difference in weight loss results of those who weighed daily to the outcomes of those weighing less often. Likely the most important component of an effective science-based weight management program must the prevention of unwanted weight gain from a change of eating and exercise habits that leads to excess body fat.

Simple Tools to Know How You Are Doing

At the end of the day, it is important for you to have the tools in place to give you the feedback you need to understand how well you’ve done. Listed below are four benefits of tracking your food, weight and daily exercise:

1) Understand Your Eating Habits – To reach you weight loss goals, you need to know how much food you are consuming and from what sources. Balancing the ratio of macronutrients can be essential for making smaller tweaks as you progress.

2) Know Nutrient Density of Foods – Establishing the nutrient density of the foods you eat allows you to balance the remainder of your day after eating foods that are more nutrient dense. This helps to ensure you meet your daily goals.

3) Measure Changes to Your Body – Taking selfies, tracking your calories, noting physical changes to your body, and recording energy intake and expenditure will help you stay motivated to achieve your weight loss goals on time.

4) Helps to Hold You Accountable – Studies published by the Journal of Obesity found that those who weighed themselves every day and tracked his or her results over time were more successful at losing weight and keeping the lost weight off.

Record Your Progress for Long-Term Success

There are many erroneous beliefs about losing weight and long-term weight regulation. It is important to develop the skills needed to identify triggers to better deal with negative attitudes that lead to overeating or a sedentary lifestyle. With increases in overweight or obese people (which is the fifth highest risk factors for global death), researchers are desperately seeking ways to promote healthy lifestyle interventions that rely on self-monitoring for better weight control. Technological advancements, such as smartphones apps, e-scales, and wearable devices, can help to eliminate barriers some people experience with trying to use traditional techniques for self-monitoring for weight control.

Tracking your food intake and the time you spend each day being physically active is a simple first step in your journey for achieving healthy living. Visit MRC online to learn more about how our one-on-one coaching can boost motivation and accountability.