Track what you're doing.

It's that simple, if you truly want to win at weight loss you need to track exactly what you are doing.  That way you can use the help of an expert to see what is working for you and what might be holding you back.

The obvious things to track are:

1.  Where you are now.  

Weight is the most common measure of this, yet should only be used on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis.  It doesn't really tell you anything about what is going on in your body.

We get our Team Achieve members to take circumference measurements; from tracking what is going on at different points around the body we can tell more accurately what is happening on the fat loss front.

2.  The food and fluids that you consume.

A simple food diary in the notes section of your phone will work just fine.  However, I've recently started using the MyFitnessPal app as part of the nutrition experiment I'm doing and it is a real eye opener.

This month I'm going to encourage all of our members to do the same and give them individual targets to aim for on their macros.  I'll explain a little more about macro tracking later in the week.

3.  The activity and exercise that you do.

A popular method of activity tracking is the Fitbit, I love mine and I check in a few times per day to see how many steps I've covered that day.  The newer ones offer a lot more info on the app.

Again a simple note on your phone or in your diary works just as well.

If you don't measure exactly what you are doing and consuming, you are really guessing about achieving results.

That doesn't work long term.

You don't need to become obsessive and track for life but a couple of weeks to understand what is going on in your body is really worth doing.

Again, we can help with advice on nutrition and exercise.  Our next bootcamp starts tomorrow with the focus being on getting the basics right.

www.achievebootcamp.co.uk/application

Darren 'tracker' Checkley

P.S.  The trial offer on greens is running until Monday, if a greens drink is something you have been thinking about adding to your plan, check out www.getleanwithgreens.co.uk.  The trial offer is for a 2 weeks supply of their greens drink for only £7.00.  You can get it here - Greens Trial.
If you haven't tried greens drinks before this one is a good introduction and a way of getting extra green vegetables in to your diet.  It tastes good compared to most out there.