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When we want to improve something, it is important to track our progress, and the behaviors that impact our desired outcomes. Self-monitoring — the process of tracking and analyzing our thoughts and actions to become more aware of how they impact our goals.
Did you know that when we track our health behaviors such as food intake and exercise, we typically eat less, exercise more and it is an effective strategy for losing weight?
Tracking allows us to break our larger goals into smaller, more manageable daily targets. Tracking also puts minor mistakes into perspective, and allows the tracker to take action to correct those mistakes. Reviewing our plans and tracking our behaviors is important on our journey on reaching our health goals as it can help us track progress, identify obstacles, overcome setbacks, provide directions and revised planning if needed to continue on as well as celebrating successes along the ways.
This week’s wellness goal is to track your healthy habits in a new way!
An example of tracking healthy habits for this week’s wellness goal could be to keep a food diary.According to studies done by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Oregon, those who kept food records six days a week -- jotting down everything they ate and drank on those days -- lost about twice as much weight as those who kept food records one day a week or less.
There are different options for keeping a food diary. You can record what you eat in a notebook, print out one of the free food diaries online or use some of the other online/phone apps and resources provided below.
Important points to remember:
- Track as you go, don’t wait until the end of the day. Be sure to track and include your beverage consumption.
- Tracking can be specific to your health goals, such as focusing on the specific nutrients related to your health goals. For example: maybe your goal includes lowering your blood pressure, so you may want to track your sodium intake to find out how much sodium you typically consume in a day.
- Be sure to document how you feel when you eat and when you’re engaging in physical activity.Journaling in a food diary can help us to become more accountable and aware of our eating habits and any triggers impacting our overall nutrition.
Helpful Tracking Tools
Click here for a free printout of a daily/weekly food diary. For a food mood journal and other printable nutrition logs, visit http://www.personal-nutrition-guide.com/free-food-diary.html
The Supertracker contains helpful nutrition and exercise tracking as well as helpful tips https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/
For mobile friendly options, consider apps such as myfitnesspal, loseit, fooducate, or fatsecret which are all free and help to track weight, food intake and physical activity.
Tracking doesn’t have to be a burden; use whatever type of tracking device that works best for you. It doesn't matter whether you use a mobile app or a notebook, what matters is something that you can use consistently.
Healthy & Well Wishes- Angelia & Amy
