Tracking your progress is one of the greatest motivators in your weight loss journey. After all, you’re not competing against anybody but yourself, and a weight loss plan without any goal or milestone is doomed to fail. Keeping a weight loss journal is essential if you want to achieve gradual and steady weight loss, and keeping it afterward might keep the weight off for good.
A great weight loss plan takes care of your mental well-being as well as it takes care of your physical health. An easy way to chronicle that is a weight loss journal. MediPlan Diet Services can help you lose weight by teaching you how to keep an accurate record of your progress.
Here are just a few of the many benefits a weight loss journal can give you:
Tracking Your Calories
Losing weight is a simple calculus: You have to burn more calories than you’re consuming. This principle is called Calories In / Calories Out, and it’s the blunt reality that governs all weight loss plans. Unlike what some people might say, it’s not a diet in and of itself; it’s the way all diets function.
Tracking your calories is essential to quantify whether you’re making any progress. So many people exercise their hearts out and never see that number on the bathroom scale drop. Tracking your calories every day gives you an honest assessment of the food choices that you’re making and if it’s helping you reach your goals.
Tracking Your Macros
“Macros” or macronutrients encompass three groups: carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Everything you eat is made up of these three elements, and they’re the vehicles that deliver the vitamins you’re eating to your bloodstream, and then to your muscles and vital organs.
Depending on the diet you’re following, you might put more emphasis on one of the three. For example, if you’re gearing up for a weightlifting competition or just trying to build muscle, you’re going to need more protein on your diet. If you’re training for a marathon or a swim meet, you’re going to need more carbohydrates.
Tracking your macros should be an everyday habit, along with tracking your micronutrient consumption. Over-the-counter supplements may have you believe that one tablet can give you all your nutrient requirements for the day, but all they do is make your urine a deeper yellow. So track your macros and your micros using a journal.
It Builds Up Accountability
With a journal, you will have a greater awareness of your strong points and your areas for improvement.
For example, if you’ve been dieting for a while, you might be prone to a few blind spots in your habits, such as skipping breakfast and gorging on a later meal. Keeping a journal will give you an honest review of what your dietary profile looks like and will allow you to single out your weaknesses.
Reading words on a page that you wrote down yourself makes things tangible and real. A Waterloo for many budding weight watchers is they tend to hang on to abstract feelings and motivations, leading them to gain back most of the weight they lost in just a few months.
Learn how to diet the right way with advice from the experts. MediPlan Diet Services can teach you how to journal effectively so you always know where you are in reaching your ideal body weight.