#showmeyourbits
How do YOU keep track of your daily nutrition (consumption) and exercise?
Do you have a tracking device?
Do you wing it?
Accountability is the “buzzword” these days.
People pay big money to coaches, online or otherwise, and even doctors like myself, to keep them accountable.
Because with discipline, comes success. Maybe not overnight …but it does come.
You spend more days “on track” then you would otherwise if you have some type of program.
Being healthy isn’t really overcomplicated…but yes, it is hard.
Tracking devices are great to show you trends over time– with both nutrition and activity.
HOWEVER, these objective numbers are a guide only; they are not exact.
And don’t get so caught up in the numbers and the tracking that you become obsessed. For people with disordered eating (yes, I’ve been there), spending too much time obsessing and tracking data is a “trigger”.
And know this: the nutrition part is SEPARATE from the exercise part.
Yes, you need both. For DIFFERENT REASONS.
You simply cannot out-exercise or out-train a poor diet– and one marked by too many excess calories or “cheat days”.
Use the calories burned function on device as a guide to show you how hard you worked compared to the previous week or month. Again, we’re looking for patterns or trends here. NOT because you burned off an extra 500 calories so you can now eat an extra 500 calories over YOUR body’s caloric needs. Or you were at a party over the weekend, so now you have to exercise and try to burn as many calories as you possibly can by taking as many fitness classes in a row as you possibly can, to try and “make up”.
We’ve all been there.
It doesn’t work that way.
Exercise for other reasons. There are MANY! You need to exercise to be healthy – mentally and physically; to stave off diseases like heart disease and cancers; to live with a better quality of life; to function better; to have less pain; ETC ETC ETC. Not for the sole purpose of: “because I want to lose weight!!”
That can be a dangerous mindset.
Whatever eating plan works for you and your lifestyle and your body, that’s at least relatively healthy (and keeping in mind any allergies or legit conditions) and you can do longterm- DO.
And if you want to lose weight on top of all those awesome benefits of exercise, great, track your calories! It’s calories in and out. That’s it.
Regardless of whether or not you exercise. But my point is, you should exercise anyway. And looking better will be a secondary by-product of all the great things you are doing with this renewed accountability.
I use MyFitnessPal to show me how I’m doing on my “macros” though after awhile (decades of discipline and eating healthy), it’s almost intuitive. I like it because it’s free. And easy.
It was many years (experience and education and more experience) to get to that point. (And if you want me to help you get there and show you, I will.)
My new hashtag #showmeyourbits is not about weight loss per se, unless that’s what you’re going for- FANTASTIC, I support you! It’s more about showing how hard you worked and the fact, quite frankly, that you worked out at all, are holding yourself accountable and that right there… DESERVES TO BE CELEBRATED.
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Any Questions?
