Do you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, just spinning tirelessly without seeing any weight loss results from your efforts? You’re not alone. You’ve probably tried every diet out there, and the only thing you lost was your mind in the process. What gives?
All of what was said above isn’t all that uncommon. Most diets fail because they aren’t realistic and something you can manage as a lifestyle. The majority of the diets out there want you to give up entire macronutrients or try some goofy cleanse that does absolutely nothing for you.
Many people find it helpful to track their nutrition by using something like MyFitnessPal. While this is fantastic and will probably get you the best results possible, there are some things you should also be tracking that aren’t what you hear being talked about online or by people in the gym.
There’s no denying that if you aren’t tracking your calories, you’ll never know if you’re in a caloric deficit, but on top of that, start tracking some of the things below, and you may find your results are shifted into high gear, and you notice the weight almost effortlessly falling off.
Here’s what you should start tracking immediately if you want to fast-track your weight loss results.
- Water Intake
It’s no secret that your body is made up of predominantly water. All your organs, systems, muscles, and cells require it to function properly and allow for optimum performance. If you were asked how much water you drank each day, could you answer accurately without taking a wild guess? If not, that’s a problem.
Drinking adequate water throughout the day not only helps keep you hydrated, but it can also help keep you full for longer by adding volume to your stomach and tricking it into thinking you are full.
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When you consume water throughout the day, it can help prevent you from overeating during meals, reaching for snacks throughout the day, and allowing you to stay in a caloric deficit to support your weight loss efforts.
- Snacks
Snacks are a trap that leads you down a rabbit hole you don’t want to find yourself going down. More times than not, you probably find yourself hungry mid-morning and mid-afternoon (generally between your meals). When this happens, many find themselves wandering to the vending machine or break room and scavenging for food items that they know they shouldn’t eat but do anyway.
Let’s be real, there’s nothing healthy in vending machines. Most are full of chips, crackers, pretzels, candy, and similar. In break rooms, well, you’ll probably find donuts, pastries, and other goodies that you know you should stay away from, or you’ll go from eating one to eating them all.
The vending machine and break room tend to have nothing but carbs and sugar — two things you know you need to stay on top of and minimize (especially when they aren’t good carbs that you want to help fuel your body and help you stay satiated).
If you do find yourself snacking, track it. Many people will nibble on this, nibble on that, and not think twice about it. What could one little bite do, right? But over an entire day where you’ve been picking at food, what this does is cause you to consume hundreds of extra calories without realizing what you’ve just done. Then before you know it, you hop on the scale over the weekend and notice over the past week you’ve gained weight but can’t understand why.
If you’re going to snack, plan your snacks and bring them with you from home. Something healthy like a protein bar, protein shake, nuts, cut-up vegetables, beef jerky, etc., would be great options. Don’t get stuck window shopping in front of the vending machine.
- Hunger/Fullness
Something else to consider tracking is your hunger and fullness level. If you’re full until 10:30 am and then start to get hungry, document it. If you feel your stomach churning at 3:30 pm, document it. This gives you a visual of where there are gaps in your nutrition and when your body starts craving food.
Knowing these times allows you the ability to make changes to your nutrition plan and alleviate those hunger pangs before they even start. Documenting all of this over a week can lead us nicely into our next category that you should be tracking as it goes hand-in-hand with hunger and fullness levels.
- Meal Frequency
Weight loss is a matter of calories in versus calories out. It’s a math game. At the end of the day, you want to have fewer calories than your maintenance to lose weight. While meal frequency has been shown to not play a significant role in weight loss (it’s more so about total daily calories), tracking your meal frequency can be advantageous. Let me explain.
If you find you are hungry throughout the day, it may be wise to consume small yet more frequent meals. Instead of going 4-5 hours between meals, have a small meal every 2.5-3 hours, which can help you stay satiated throughout the day and not cause you to feel hungry and want to binge.
Track your meal frequency and see where the periods are that you’re hungry throughout the day. Then, spread out your meals to accommodate those timeframes by adding a small meal while still ensuring you’re in a caloric deficit at the end of each day.
- How You Feel
Moving straight forward from your hunger/fullness level and meal frequency is how you feel. You want to track how you feel throughout the day so that you can examine if you should be changing up the food you eat and even the times you should eat. If you notice your energy is low on a given day, document it and then look back at what you ate. Did you not consume enough calories? Do you need to increase your carbs slightly? Are you lethargic because you had an unhealthy, high-fat meal?
One thing to consider is that you want to help fuel your workouts. If you get to the gym and you’re dragging, it’s due to your nutrition earlier in the day, which can negatively affect your training session. If your last meal was four hours before the gym, you might want to consider moving it closer to around 1.5-2 hours before your workouts.
Putting It All Together
A lot of what is mentioned above is trial and error. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa. But by tracking and documenting everything, you put yourself in a better position to achieve the weight loss you desire. Therefore, on top of just tracking your calories and macronutrients throughout the day, start tracking the above, and you may notice a drastic improvement in your results.
If you want to further advance your results, consider adding sea moss to your supplement regimen. Sea moss has been shown to help improve weight loss while being full of key minerals and nutrients that promote overall health.
Holistic Bin Organic Caribbean Blend Sea Moss is wild-harvested, ocean-rinsed, and sun-dried to provide you with the highest quality and sustainably sourced sea moss available. Add it to your nutrition plan and you may experience its weight loss benefits.
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