It is hard to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. To experience something the way someone else has is difficult, maybe impossible. This concept is incredibly important for me to be aware of when coaching individuals through lifestyle and habit changes and worth thinking about when criticizing others. You can take this concept and apply it across a broad spectrum of topics. How can you know what it is like for someone else to go through hardship? Even if you experience the same event as another person, the way you perceive it is most likely different from their perception. The same goes for success. People can experience the same successes (a promotion, accomplishing a weight loss goal, learning a new skill) and process that success very differently. I think this is why some people can make a change or implement a habit immediately without any resistance while others have to battle with themselves every day to stick to a plan. Even if two hypothetical people are working on the same habits and changes, the experience they have while working towards the goal is not the same. How could it be the same if it is easy for one person and difficult for the other?

Tracking and applying data about your health and fitness is a topic that falls into this category of same behavior but different experience. Some decide they don’t have enough time, don’t want to develop a bad relationship with food, are worried about the number on the scale; while others work through these challenges and prioritize these habits as they understand the potential benefit if done correctly.

If someone can get comfortable with gathering data about themselves, I believe that process can be one of the most beneficial things they can do for their health and fitness. When you track for long enough, you really start to understand the trends in your life that have gotten you to where you are, and this process allows you to see the path to getting to where you want to be. In the past, I have shied away from this option for people as I thought that it may cause bad habits or create bad relationships with food or the scale, but I have come back around to it after coaching enough people. When done correctly, it is one of the most effective options for making meaningful, long-lasting change.

In the context of body weight changes, there are different levels to tracking. Some need to gather a large amount of data while others may only need to track one variable. Determining what you need is the first step. The types of data to start with are:

  1. Nutrition & water/fluid intake – This can cover a number of things, such as: total calorie intake, macronutrient splits (carbs, fats, proteins), micronutrient intake (vitamins and minerals), fruit and veggie intake, meal composition, meal timing, meal frequency, snacking, and more.
  2. Sleep quality and quantity –This is an important variable that plays a central role in recovery, metabolism, and overall well-being, amongst other things.
  3. Workouts – Understanding what signal you are sending to the body is important. Are you applying a muscle-building stimulus, fat loss stimulus, or some combination of both? We can use this data to make better decisions about our workouts.
  4. Daily activity – How many steps are you taking per day? How active are you throughout the day? Are you sitting more often than standing? We know that NEAT (non-exercise activity) is responsible for around 15% of our daily energy expenditure. This is an important variable to get a handle on in order to understand what changes should be made. In this past blog I go over the basics of the calorie equation and what makes up its the different parts.

There are many different strategies to gathering this data and certainly best practices to ensure it is done correctly. I will go through these strategies in the next article and get more specific. For now, think about your experience with tracking some data about yourself and the reaction you have had to that behavior in the past. Did you come up with reasons to not do it? Did you have resistance to any specific part of the process? What went right? What went wrong? What did you learn? If you are working towards a goal, this is an exercise worth going through. How can you know what to change if you do not know what you have been doing?