Tracking Progress

Until 2006, tracking my progress was a constant challenge.  My weight fluctuates in a wild manner with absolutely NO consistency that I've ever been able to find.  I had tried everything from weighing monthly to weekly to daily to not weighing at all.  (Believe me, that didn't work.  LOL!)  Although my head knew that a three pound gain, for no apparent reason, could be water retention, too much sodium the day before, constipation, etc., my heart never dealt well with a gain after I'd worked so hard for a loss. Fortunately, with enough research and reading of weight loss books, I've again found something that works beautifully for me and keeps me accountable to myself.  I believe is was the Heller's in their Carbohydrate Addiction books that  first gave me this idea.  I started this method of tracking for both weight and exercise in early 2006 and have followed it faithfully ever since.  I weigh every morning and record that day's weight in a simple Excel spreadsheet that I created.  At the end of each week, the previous seven days are AVERAGED automatically and the average weight for the WEEK is where I focus.  That average is in bold red print with a different font, so my eyes are drawn to focus on that figure rather than the daily figures for the previous seven days.  As another checkpoint, I use a larger font and bold color to highlight the first day of each month.  It becomes simple to see how my weight changes month to month, but the focus is still on the weekly aveage.  The spreadsheet makes it easy to add a new tab for each new year.  I am now in my fifth year of logging and the method has been perfect for me.  I can go to this Excel Workbook and with a couple of clicks can tell you my weight on any given day since early 2006.   It isn't always easy to get on those scales after a poor day of eating (and I've had several of those over the past couple of years), nor is it easy to watch the number on the spreadsheet going UP instead of DOWN, but all of that makes it so much sweeter when you can look back and watch it going steadily down.  

The Heller's eating plan and many of their philosophies were way too stringent for me, but I will be forever thankful to them for this idea.  I utilize the same spreadsheet idea for tracking my exercise, but that will be tomorrow's post.

Today is absolutely gorgeous in East Tennessee.  We've had some pretty strong storms over the last couple of days, but the end result is temps in the low 70's, no humidity and bright sunshine.  I'm headed out to enjoy it!!

Tomorrow:  Planning and Tracking Exercise