Diet / Healthy Eating Tips / Weight Loss

Week 3 – GetReal! Get Healthy Challenge

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Hello Challengers! Welcome to Week 3 of GetReal! Get Healthy!

Your challenge this week is….

Monitor Your Progress

Monitoring your progress is a vital step for ANY lifestyle change. It helps to keep your goals at the forefront of your mind, boosting motivational levels and helps you to hone in on any areas that need a little work.

Keep a food journal

You can learn a lot about your eating habits and food triggers from a food journal. People who record what they eat are 50% more successful at weight loss (especially at the beginning of their Get Healthy Challenge)!

Your challenge this week includes recording everything that you eat and drink. Try the Lose It! app or FitDay online for an easy way to track food, exercise and weight.

Also, use the info you collect to think about areas you could improve. For example, you might notice that you feel out of control at dinner time if you miss your afternoon snack. Solution: have a small, healthy afternoon snack. Then re-evaluate.

Weigh yourself

Once or twice per week only! On the same day(s) and at the same time.

Everybody’s weight naturally goes up and down throughout the day. Did you know you’re your weight can fluctuate about 5 lbs in a day?! Weighing yourself too often is inaccurate and can be discouraging while not weighing yourself at all can lead to small weight gains that you would otherwise never notice and hence not be able to do anything about! Become friends with the scale, k?

And don’t forget…

Everybody gets off track sometimes. If you feel you that you didn’t make the best choice at a meal or snack, don’t fret! Just make the best choice that you can at your next meal or snack.

Now, here’s your Do this! Post this! task for Week 3:

Do this! Pick a weigh- in day and start recording EVERYTHING you eat and drink. 

Post this! How do you keep track of your food intake? Do you have a favorite app or website or do you prefer the tried and true paper and pen method?

– A & M.

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16 thoughts on “Week 3 – GetReal! Get Healthy Challenge”

  3. I have been doing this for over 8 months on weight watchers. I track my food before I eat it, therefore knowing ahead of time how much I am about to eat. I use the WW app but My Fitness Pal is good too. I get weighed every Thursday at 11:30am. And it works – I have now lost 54lbs in 8 months!!

    • Thanks for sharing Christine. It’s great to know that monitoring your food and weight is working so well for you – phenomenal job on the 54 lbs!! I like the idea of writing it down BEFORE you’re going to eat it. That helps you stick to your guns. Do you ever track your hunger on the 1-10 scale before you eat? That’s another way to monitor. Keep up the great work 🙂

      • I haven’t tracked my hunger because after I eat I am satisfied. I never eat to being stuffed and I know how much I have to eat so I’m not starving.

      • Great! That’s a hard one to learn – have you always been able to do it, or did it take time to learn to tune into your hunger? What about boredom – do you ever eat when bored or stressed?

      • I’ve only been doing this for 8 months – but it clicked for me when I was introduced with the WW Point system. Before that I didn’t pay too much attention to what I eat. I am a night time snacker, but by substituting my chips for Smart Pop popcorn, I have been able to snack and lose weight.

        For those who don’t remember to track or write down what they eat – I do it first thing in the morning. I track my whole day. Luckily, I work from home and know exactly what I am eating. Then I see how many points/calories I have left so I know where I can add a snack into my day. And if you have a bad day, that’s OK – tomorrow is a new day!!

        Every Friday I do a post on my Weight Watchers journey. If you are interested you can check them out here: http://scraptime.ca/blogpage/?cat=833 I let my readers know how much weight I lost or didn’t lose and talk about whatever is on my mind that week.

      • Great insight and thanks for sharing your blog, will definitely check it out 🙂 I like the idea of pre planning what you’re going to eat, so smart and that way you can plan your “treats” too and look forward to them instead of feeling guilty like we sometimes do when we stray from our meal plan.

  4. I started working out 3-4 times a week. I’m in my 6th week now. I know my before weight but have not weighed myself since. I think I’m scared to! I’d rather not know as my motivation is high right now – that big number is still in my mind. I feel better, though. I’m noticing tiny changes, like how clothes fit, but am staying away from the scale. Are timed weigh-ins always a good thing?

    I find it VERY hard to remember to log what I eat. I’ve tried Fitness Pal iphone app but I just don’t remember to use it! How do people get in the habit? I’ve heard that most people actually lie to themselves on these food journals – not accounting for all ingredients and/or real portion size. Are they really that helpful? I feel like meal planning ahead of time is the key for me…

    • Hi Jen – you raise some very valid points. At the end of the day, you know yourself best so if you think weighing yourself would discourage you then don’t do it. If your clothes are fitting better than the proof is in the pudding. Regular weigh-ins can work well for people once they have lost weight or if they are trying to maintain a particular weight as small weight gains can happen without us noticing.
      Remembering to log your food can be very hard! How do other’s remember? I tend to do it first thing when I get to work – I leave a little note on my desk to remind me. But if you think planning ahead of time would work better for you then go for it! (it’s essentially the same thing). Let us know how goes 🙂

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  6. Three weeks ago I decided I wanted to lose weight. I looked at your GetReal Weight Loss Tips and it said to monitor what I eat so I started using SparkPeople. I find it encouraging because on those days that I didn’t eat what I should have I can view my chart for the week and see that one bad day doesn’t mean I am failing. At first I would look at my daily intake and see I was over my goal for the 3rd straight day and I found it so discouraging. But using the weekly report really helps see that I am still on target or close. It also helps me see where my calories were coming from. I noticed my meals would be reasonable but the days I would go over my goal it were the snacks that did it. I also noticed that weekends are bad for me and Mondays/Tuesdays are my best days (probably trying to compensate for the weekend). Figuring out these trends has been helpful because I watch my snacking more and have paid more attention to my weekend eating. It’s only been a bit over 3 weeks but I have lost 6 pounds and just feel better. The comment above is correct though, I know sometimes I over or under estimate what I ate. I think in the long run I probably get close to averaging out. I find it’s that handful of nuts or that coffee or the butter on my veggies that I forget the most. I found at first if I couldn’t remember to log in I would keep a little notebook on me and jot it down and enter it all the next morning. But even if it’s not 100% accurate it’s got me paying attention, motivated and seems to be working!

    • Hi Jolene – you make some excellent points! It’s all about averages and trends over the week. It can take the pressure off to know that one meal won’t ruin your whole week. A whole week of monitoring gives a better sense of where those cals are coming from and which changes will give you the biggest bang for your buck -like you noticed.
      And wow! 6 lbs in 3 weeks is fantastic!! Excellent job. Those little changes and just being more aware can totally make a huge difference. Keep up the good work and keep sharing those insights – they are really helpful. 🙂

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