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Weight Loss Tip: What to track to set yourself up for weight loss success
Successful sustainable weight loss is based on holistic knowledge of your progress
Katie
October 02, 2023
If you’re losing weight, chances are you’re tracking your weight on a regular basis - either daily or weekly, weight will be the metric you focus on. While tracking the number on the scale is of course standard practice, weight loss can be accelerated by monitoring additional metrics to gain a more comprehensive understanding of what drives your success. Today we explore the other metrics you should think about tracking when embarking on a weight loss journey and why they are essential for achieving your goals.
Knowledge, is after all, power; by tracking a range of other metrics you’ll be able to learn the impact your sleep, stress, mood and other factors all have on weight loss. If you know the impact of other factors, you'll be able to optimise your weight loss success. So let’s take a look at what ‘else’ to track.
First, the feel-good stuff - it’s not all about measuring how much fat you've lost or how much your body has changed shape. We recommend tracking these things because they’re about how you feel, and they’ll help you to feel good.
Track your mood
Emotional well-being plays a significant role in weight loss success. Tracking mood along-side other things like food intake and weight helps you to understand the relationship between your mood and changes in weight. You could record your mood each day, and you could also track stress levels and even make a note of specific stress events in your life.
Your mood may not directly affect your weight on a day-to-day basis but if you have periods of lower mood, you may find the data you track shows that the low mood has a longer-term impact on your ability to lose weight.
Track your sleep
Poor sleep can negatively impact weight loss efforts. Tracking your sleep duration and quality will help you to see any correlation between sleep and mood, and sleep and food intake. You may well see a pattern - less sleep may cause you to make poorer food choices, or to eat more food than on days after you've had a restful night's sleep. Aim for 7-9 hours of restorative sleep each night.
Track your non-scale victories
Acknowledging and celebrating non-scale victories is really important in a weight loss journey. Non-scale victories might include wearing new clothes, going to new places or trying new activities. These could be big things like ’going ziplining for the first time’ or small things like ’eating at a new restaurant’. These non-scale achievements are motivating and they affirm your progress.
Track your Hunger and Fullness
Listening to your body's hunger and fullness cues is essential. Maintain a journal of your eating habits and note how you feel before and after meals. People who use mindful eating for weight loss swear by this simple ‘weight loss trick’ as learning about what it takes to fill you up, and learning to notice the difference between true hunger and emotional hunger can help you make informed food choices and eat in a way to sustain your body - and not to overload it.
Next, let's take a look at tracking your activities - the energy in and energy out aspects of weight loss. We advise that tracking these things can help you stay on track and build up new knowledge about how your body works and how it responds to your weight loss programme.
Track your food
Keeping a food diary or using a calorie-tracking app can help you monitor your daily food and drink intake. The very act of tracking can help some people to make healthier choices. The purpose of food tracking is not to obsess over what food you eat, but rather to notice what food you eat and acknowledge it.
Track your physical activity
Regular exercise of any type is important. Some people will be comfortable tracking the intricacies of fitness routines, gym workouts, miles run and so on. For others, any form of exercise tracking can be transformational, and help to create a mindset shift that exercise is something doable and enjoyable. Track your exercise routines, even if your routine is simply walking, and track duration and intensity. By tracking and reviewing you’ll be able to gradually increase your physical activity to aid your weight loss journey.
Track your energy expenditure
Consider using fitness trackers or wearable devices to estimate your daily calorie expenditure. Understanding how your activity levels impact your weight loss progress can help you make informed choices. Of course, this isn’t for everyone, and we recognise that fitness trackers may not be so accurate at tracking general energy expenditure. We;Re al different, after all, so one person may expend more energy doing day-to-day activities than another. If you do use one, treat the data as a guide, and while it may not be exact, it will show you how your energy expenditure differs from day to day.
Next up let’s explore your measurements. Many people don't want to measure themselves, aside from the number on the scale. Most people who are a healthy weight don't usually measure themselves either. Unless you’re on a fitness journey, measuring yourself is odd for most people.
We only advise you to track bodily measurements in order to learn about your rate of change, because unless you are on an intense fitness journey, these measurements don’t really matter all that much.
Track your Body Mass Index (BMI)
BMI is the controversial and perhaps too simple formula that estimates your body fat based on your height and weight. While it has limitations, it allows you to track your weight without fixating on the actual weight itself. Remember that BMI does not consider factors like muscle mass or body composition.
Track your Body Measurements
Tracking body measurements, such as your waist, hips, chest, arms, and thighs, can help you see changes in your body shape, even when the scale may not show significant weight loss. Some people with unwanted weight won't want to know the minutia of their exact bodily measurements and that's fine. If you do want to know, it can be a great way to understand where weight is lost from your body. Weight will of course be lost from everywhere, but sometimes, seeing the difference in certain areas can be informative.
Track your Body Fat Percentage
Measuring your body fat percentage offers a more accurate picture of your body composition than BMI. Methods such as skinfold calipers, and bioelectrical impedance scales, can help you determine your body fat percentage and track changes. Many digital scales will offer you a body composition reading, if yours does, it may be helpful to track changes in fat percentage over time - perhaps monthly.
Next up is the health stuff. We all want to feel healthier and to be rewarded for our weight loss efforts by seeing tangible changes in our health for the better. Most people don't track their health on a regular basis. We want your weight loss journey to be as stress-free as possible so don’t advise you to track these metrics too often unless you already monitor them due to an existing condition. If you like you could track health metrics at the start, then perhaps monthly, to build a picture of your health data over time.
Track your Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Levels
Weight loss can have positive effects on blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Periodic monitoring provides valuable feedback on your progress and overall health.
Track your Blood Sugar Levels
For individuals with diabetes or those at risk for it, monitoring blood sugar levels is crucial. Weight loss often helps improve blood sugar control, making it an important metric to track.
And finally, the results.
Track your Progress Photos
Visual tracking is a powerful tool for monitoring weight loss progress. Take regular photos of yourself from different angles to observe changes in your body shape and size over time. Sometimes, these changes are more noticeable in pictures than on the scales. Plus of course, photos are a great way to capture and celebrate your progress along the way.
Where to track your weight loss metrics
You can track these metrics anywhere. The simplest way to track is to buy a simple notebook and track your metrics - one page per day at the end of each day, then track weekly measurements such as weight. You can of course buy a journal, or even a weight-loss-specific journal to help you do these things too.
Some of these metrics are already tracked by your devices - connected weighing scales, fitness trackers, and even medical devices. While you can use apps independently, other apps like Apple’s Health app will pull all your data together into one place.
Having your own place, digitally or in notebook or journal format will help you track the key metrics that matter to you. Whatever you do, only track the metrics that you care about and that make you feel good about yourself and your weight loss journey.
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