Write It Down!

Write it down!

      The value of keeping a journal is immense. No, I don’t mean a “Dear Diary” sort of journal. Not the Diary of Anne Frank. Not Zlata’s Diary. The journal I refer to is a record of your physical progress. If you don’t measure your progress, and you don’t record your progress, how will you know if you are progressing, or what might be aiding your progress? Or hindering it.

     Many people weigh themselves compulsively. Sometimes they write down their weight. When people start trying to improve their weight, they often start counting calories – they calculate the number of calories in every mouthful of food they eat, and they calculate the number of calories in every activity that they do, and they look at the number on the scale, and often they get discouraged because they are burning lots of calories and consuming few calories and they are still not losing weight! What’s going on here?

     Here is where a journal comes in. Suppose you are going to start exercising on a regular basis. Set a reasonable goal. If you are just starting out, you might want to fit 15 minutes of exercise into your day. Write that in your journal. Write down how long you exercised, and when, and what you did. The next day, you might try exercising for just a few minutes longer; write that down. The next day, you might try exercising just a few minutes longer than that; write that down. Now you have a record of success. Your record shows that you are exercising every day, for at least 15 minutes. It is generally accepted that we need at least 30 minutes of exercise per day just to stay even. If you want to lose weight or improve condition, you will have to do more than 30 minutes per day, but you can work up to it gradually, and your journal will show you how you are doing.

     The only measurement tool you are using at this point is a watch. Now you can add an inexpensive pedometer to your “tool kit”. If you are walking for exercise – and it is the cheapest and easiest form of exercise for most of us – then just clip your pedometer onto your sock. Don’t worry about the length of your stride or the number of miles you are logging; just concentrate on the steps. When you write down how long you walked, also write down how many steps you walked, according to your pedometer. If you walk a little bit longer and walk a few more steps each day, and write this down, you will see how well you are doing. Nothing succeeds like success, they say, and your record of success will inspire you to keep going and do even better.

     If you are trying to lose weight, then somewhere in your journal you could write down your starting weight. Each week you might weigh yourself and write down the result. You might not see much change at first. Using the “calories in, calories out” model, it is generally accepted that you need a calorie deficit of 3500 for every pound of body fat you want to lose. That means that you need to expend 3500 calories more, or eat 3500 calories less, or a combination of both, before you will lose a pound of fat. Fifteen minutes of walking at a moderate pace will burn about 60 calories. It’s better than nothing, and it all adds up, but don’t expect the scale to reflect this for a while.

     Losing fat from your body is a good thing. Losing water from your body is not a good thing. Unfortunately, it is much easier to lose a pound of water than a pound of fat. This lost water weight will show up on your scale, but it a negative thing, not a positive thing. That is why I am not much in favour of measuring success by the numbers on your scale. Drinking lots of pure, clean water is good for your health. Water makes all the processes of your body possible. Without sufficient water, your body will not function optimally. Ultimately your body will be able to metabolize (burn off) more fat if it has plenty of water. Diets that promise lots of weight loss in a short time usually cause you to become dehydrated. It is only possible to burn off about 2 pounds of fat in a week; any more weight loss than that is either water or muscle, and neither is good. So be patient. Improve your level of exercise, because that is the healthy thing to do, but exercise alone is not likely to make you thin. What you eat – and when you eat it – has a much greater effect on weight loss than exercise does.

     Your journal is where you will record what you eat, and when you eat, and how you feel as a result of eating and exercising. This will help you to repeat things that contribute to your progress, and avoid things that hinder your progress.