One of the best weight-loss tools is the hardest one to do! It’s tracking what you eat and how much you exercise.
Personally, I hate it, and most of you do to. It’s tedious and has to be done every day, even when I don’t FEEL like it.
Sometimes, I get lazy about healthy eating. I eat whatever I want, including more afternoon cookies and nighttime ice cream. As soon as I pull out my tracking plan, most of that stops almost immediately.
Over the years, I have done many versions of tracking. But if I’m having struggles with my weight going up, tracking seems to always help me get things back in control.
Benefits of tracking
One research study found that people who kept food records lost twice as much as those who didn’t track. Wow- that says a lot about why it’s important.
Here are a few reasons why you should consider tracking your food intake.
Increased awareness
Tracking helps you make more conscious choices about what you eat (or don’t eat.) When you have to write it down, you can’t pretend you didn’t eat it. It also helps you figure out if you are having larger portions or grabbing food a lot more often.
Goal setting
Plan to track food intake and exercise for a certain amount of time, such as a month. At the end of that time, evaluate how you did with that goal. Writing it down makes it more likely that you will stay with your plans.
Identify problems
Where are you slipping up? Is it every afternoon when you are tired and eat something to feel better? Are you sneaking food after everyone has gone to bed? Maybe you slip into unconscious eating.
How to get started with tracking
If you’ve used a system before, consider going back to it. Write it down in a journal, or type it on your computer or phone.
I still love using the dot calendar I created for tracking. It’s visual and doesn’t require me to keep lots of details. At the end of each day, you put a sticker on a calendar that represents how well you did that day.
Green sticker is great, yellow is moderate, and red is a pretty bad day.
While this isn’t my actual calendar from this month, it looks a lot like some of mine in the past.
As you can see, I did fine during the week, but weekends threw me off. At least I could see what I needed to work on.
When I put the stickers on the calendar at the end of each day, it’s easy to see ow well I did with my eating and exercise goals. And by the end of a month, it becomes pretty obvious whether I’m following my plan or not.
Here’s a link to print out the calendars.
I also provide a free online program that works great for tracking. It even has an online version of the dot calendar.
Check it out: tracking program
Track until you don’t have to
If you are struggling with staying on your weight-loss plan consider tracking your food and exercise for a while.
You may not need to continue tracking long term, but anytime you begin to struggle with your weight-loss goals, go back to it for awhile.
As she sat in my office, Patty said, “It was another bad week on my diet. I didn’t really stick with it at all.
Last summer, Kate bought a new diet book. The plan looked great, and Kate knew that if she followed it carefully, she would lose her extra thirty pounds quite easily.
A year ago, I was walking regularly, following a healthy eating plan, and doing yoga stretches. Then one day, I stopped. 
