Feedback Keeps Weight On Track

Happy Monday everyone! It’s the 1st of the love-month! Squeal! 😀 Make sure you’ve got that dinner booked already, okay? If that’s your thing, that is 😀

Today I’d like to continue on the same vein I started with last Monday which is about the weight loss I’ve experienced since last November.  Although it’s not that drastic – a mere 4.5 kilos from where I started – I lost that through some simple and easy-to-implement behavior modifications. I am convinced that behavior modification is key to sustainable and lasting weight loss.

Last week I shared some basic truths I stick to; today I’ll share about the simple but very important feedback tools that help keep my eyes on the ball – I have 2.

Tool #1:

Okay so some of us rely on our favorite pair of jeans for that wake-up call.  We go merry-ly on our way until one day – bam! We can’t pull the thing up past our thighs.

I think by the time this happens it’s already too late. We step on that dreaded scale and find out we’re way off where we’re supposed/want to be. And we’re now in panic mode.

I didn’t want this happening to me anymore so since November I’ve become besties with the trusty bathroom scale.  I hop on it every morning and it tells me whether I’m on or off track – before my jeans bite and choke me.

I weigh myself at the same time every morning, before breakfast, after having done my business in the toilet.  I do it daily not because I’m being obsessive, but because I’m watching out for trends.  Weight naturally fluctuates, so I don’t take a single reading as definitive.  I only take it as real if the same digits come up 2 or 3 days in a row.

And what if I don’t like what my bestie is telling me?

Tool #2:

That’s when I go check my (uber-simple) food diary.

I’m not particularly a big fan of this tool, truthfully. It’s cumbersome.  So I keep it real simple and only write down what I eat, when and a general portion description of it. I keep it on my iPhone because I always have my iPhone with me. You can be more descriptive with it of course, whatever works and promotes the most consistency.

I don’t write down calories or ingredients or how much they weigh.  I know the foods I eat anyway so when I say I ate 1 chocolate muffin I can estimate its level of ‘sinfulness’.

Complementary Tools

So when tool #1 tells me I’m going the wrong way I check tool#2 and see what caused it.  Maybe that 1 chocolate muffin every after dinner became a daily habit I did not even realize.  (Seriously, sweets can be really stealthy!) I’ve found that it’s usually something insignificant that builds up over time, and that it’s just a matter of elimination.

— (Like that lunchtime ice-pop that over time became a habit with the group I used to go out to lunch with while I was still working.  That was just 1 ice-pop per day, but all of us gained weight! Sneaky sweetie!)

How about you? What tools are you using to help you manage your weight?