Track What You Eat and What You Do to Lose Weight
It’s often said that we fail at our goals because we don’t track what we do. If we don’t know where we are, how do we know where we’re going? If you want to lose weight, you have to keep a close eye on what you’re eating. If you “guess” that you’re eating 2,000 calories a day, or you only eat when you feel hungry, you could be over-eating or under-eating. If you keep your healthy calorie intake (healthy calories coming from lean meats, fruits, and vegetables) to a certain range, it starts to get really easy to lose weight.
70% of losing weight is about diet. Don’t think that you can spend 2 hours in the gym, working your ass off, and then rewarding yourself with two value meals from Burger King. You’ll never lose weight this way.
That said, you should definitely try out FitDay.com for tracking your progress. At the very least, use it as a tool to track the amount of calories you eat. That way, you can be completely honest with yourself. After a few days you’ll begin to see why what you’re eating is working, or not working.
Also, apologies for not updating this website too often. I am working on a book that I will give out for free to everyone who wants to lose weight. Basically it condenses down all the basics you need to know about losing weight into a handy, short book. Should be in the next week or so.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I completely agree. A recent study found that even after a nutrition class test subjects, left to their own devices were asked to approximate home many calories they were consuming. The average test subject was low balling their number by 25%.
In my practice I have my clients journal their foods including, calories, protein, carbs, fat, and fiber. They write down the time of each meal and snack and if they’re was any emotional issue. Next they write down their exercise type, duration and intensity.
I have them bring the journal in for their workout sessions so we can go through it together. Having someone to follow up them helps keep them honest.
Thanks for the article. p.s. I bookmarked your site on several social sites this week.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Thanks for the useful post. I have the bad habit of not tracking my progress in anything, whether in eating, exercising or any goal in personal or professional life.
Hopefully after reading your post and understanding the importance of tracking things down, I will start doing it soon.
Thanks for pointing to the useful “fitday” resource as well.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
The truth is that diet is everything when it comes to staying fit. You can work out as hard as you want, but if your diet stinks, then you’ll never lose the weight you want. My best friend is a personal trainer and he always gets on me for not eating the way I should. If I listen to him more and get myself in shape it will definitely be because of my diet. Thanks for the advice.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:01 am
I would advise complimenting your diet with exercise, and vice versa. Having a journal, a simple notebook would do, will greatly help since you can track what you’ve been upto and anticipate results.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Back in my early 20’s I would keep a food log in a notebook that I carried with me throughout the day. Whenever I ate anything I would write down the food, portion size, calories, protein, fat, and carbs. It was a good way to micromanage my nutrition plan in order to gain muscle and lose fat more effectively.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
You are absolutely correct. I have experienced this on myself. Initially I was just trying to reduce weight without any goal and tracking, so it did not take me any where. Then i decided a goal of loosing 10 pounds in 3 months. And you know i already lost 8 pound in 2 months. So it should not be that difficult to loose another 2 pounds. I will also try to track using the website you have given
January 14th, 2009 at 4:05 am
Agreed with you where we should track our records on what we eat everyday. I always feel very hungry after yoga class, and it is quite difficult not having my big meal.:) What I should do is to eat that has less calories so that I can still maintain my weight after that.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:15 am
How true is that about the diet and exercising.
My best weight loss experience was in Truskavets - mineral water spa in western Ukraine (got a Ukrainian wife and we were visiting her relatives). Firstly, my diet consisted of juice and nuts only (different kinds but no regulations as to the quantity - I never felt unhappy or unsaturated). Secondly, 3 miles run three times a day. Thirdly, unique natural mineral water spring which washes your kidneys and gallbladder clean of stones and crystallized salts.
I shed 33 pounds over a period of 3 weeks. Just a small detail to describe my surprise - the first time I noticed I got slimmer was when my watch started jumping up and down my wrist while running - and before it was holding my wrist too tight.
I still believe that though the diet and physical exercise contributed much, the very important parts of my weight loss success were: no stress, spending time walking through the Carpathian forests, not thinking about my job and not having anything with me which can be plugged in or switched on - no laptop or palm or iPhone
January 16th, 2009 at 5:13 am
A very nice and informative post indeed. To some extent super food might be right. But I go to a gym and the guys there are extremely helpful and apart from suggesting targeted exercises they also suggest balance natural diet plans.
So I guess we shouldn’t generalize.
Rose.
January 17th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I have tried the whole “write down everything you eat” journal. I find that I don’t eat bad at all but, I don’t exercise at all, and I think my metabolism is almost non-existent. What ideas do you have (other than exercise, I know I need to do that) that can help me get results. I have had Thyroid test, a few times, and it is fine. I don’t want to take drugs, I want to do it the right way, but I seriously do not eat bad at all! my son has celiac disease, and I cook all my meals, we do not eat out. I make a protein, a vegitable, and rice, or a potatoe. He cannot have butter either, so we eat vegan butter, and NO bread, becaseu it has wheat in it - what can I do? Exercise cannot be the only way to lose weight. I will work out, but I know if I eat good and I still don’t lose weight, then exercise will only help me lose a little. help!
January 18th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I agree with the views expressed in the article. Keeping a track on what we eat and having having meals for 5 to 6 times a day in smaller quantities helps a lot in weight loss. Including more of fresh fruits and vegetables makes a great diet for weight loss.
-Sami
January 21st, 2009 at 12:07 am
I cannot agree more, onc eyou actually take the time to review everything that you put in your mouth and then do the math, its scary how quickly it adds up!
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
Great article. I highly agree with you on tracking what foods and how much food is consumed on a daily basis. This makes a person accoutable on what they are eating and it educates a person on how many calories should be consumed in order to lose the weight and keep it off.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I can’t agree more. I know from experience that tracking my nutrition and exercise is my secret weapon to losing weight and keeping it off. It all starts to slip when I don’t. I personally use sparkpeople.com and have done so for about 5 years now. They have lots of information on their site and it is free. I haven’t tried fitday but I will check them out and see if they have anything to offer me that sparkpeople do not have at this time.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:56 am
I am very bad at tracking. Thanks for the link to fit day I signed up and hopefully this will help me to track better.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Good post. I agree. Dieting is almost always keeping control – regardless of whether it’s about eating or exercising. I can’t argue with the exercising part, but I have to say that eating is easier said than done. For one thing, in my experience, going into a new diet can be really taxing for the body. I know people who can’t sleep or who feel they are starving because they replaced their diets with veggies. And so even though tracking what one eats can be an important part of dieting, it’s still a very hard thing to do, especially for beginners. By the way, thanks for the link.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
amen to that. the trick is to find the desire/willpower to record and see what causes the greatest benefit.
-jack
January 27th, 2009 at 4:16 am
In course of getting fit my out most nemesis is disciplining myself of what to eat. I always loss track of what I eat, I guess that is the reason why I fail to maintain my weight. I work-out regularly but most of the time I ate a lot so the balance was destroyed. This post encourage me to lookout of what i eat. Thanks a lot for this post. Very helpful.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Tracking does add an incentive to lose weight. You see results, thus you try harder. Good post and good to recognize that this makes a difference.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I agree, and it also keeps you motivated by recording what you do. and it is nice to see and judge what works for you and what you enjoy and what you dont.
Dan
March 9th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Making a note of what you eat and drink can make all the difference. If you can see what you are eating or what you are going to eat then you are more likely to stick to your diet and lose weight.
Excellent post!