Your Challenge, If You Choose To Accept It

There are seven weeks before Thanksgiving. For many, this is the beginning of the Bermuda Triangle for weight loss: Thanksgiving, Christmas (or Channukah or Kwanzaa) and New Year’s. It’s like everything we’ve learned over the last nine months are forgotten about in a haze of baked goods, candy and roasted meats and fishes (not to mention all of the alcohol). All of the behavior changes we’ve made are thrown out the window for latkes, cookies, and champagne. Then we come back from the food and drink haze on January 2^nd hung over, weighing more that we did on November 20^th and looking to start all over again.

Starting last week, the “Dubs-Dubs” is working into its meetings the tools every member needs to set him or herself up for success during the Bermuda Triangle. This week was all about tracking.

As I mentioned before, this is the one aspect of weight loss that I seem to have the biggest problem sticking with. I guess it’s the weight loss mirror for me and it tells me what I’ve done. When I’ve done something really positive, like run for 45 minutes, I don’t have any problems tracking it. It’s when I haven’t done what I think I should is when I resist tracking the most. It’s as if it didn’t happen if I didn’t track it. Of course this isn’t true. My ass always will track what I’ve done even when I don’t, so who and I trying to hide it from? Me, I guess.

However, once I don’t write one thing down, it just becomes easier to “forget” to track something else. The next thing I know, it’s Tuesday night and I only tracked Wednesday and Thursday (my weigh in day is Wednesday night, so my weight loss week starts on Wednesday).

However, tracking is only bad because I give it that negative value. It is the mirror. It is the truth. It is information. It can tell me if I’ve fulfilled my good health guidelines. It can tell me what kinds of foods I’m eating and when and if they are satisfying my hunger. It can show me how much progress I’m making over time. It can tell me how many inches I’ve lost and how many sizes I’m down. It can even tell me if I’ve achieved my goals for that week. Yes, I can track much more than just food and exercise and I can learn so much about myself, but only if I actually do it.

During the second of two meetings I attend on Wednesday nights, a fellow member mentioned that another leader gave them a tracker challenge, where members had to track all food and activity for 12 weeks and then would get a star when they brought in their trackers each week and it was complete. So, the ever fabulous WW leader Melanie offered us the same challenge for 8 weeks. Of course I signed up for this challenge! This is exactly what I need right now. Is it weird that I am excited to complete this challenge and track everything for the next 56 days? Maybe, but if it works, I don’t care.

During a meeting a few weeks ago, Joey, a fellow member said this about tracking, “Your weight loss is your journey and your tracker is your map.” If I use that map, then I can know where I’ve been and how far I’ve traveled.