I am having trouble tracking

I’m having trouble tracking.
Article By: Weight Watchers




Our Take: Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Most people haven’t spent the past 10, 20 or 30 years of their lives writing down what they eat, so it’s completely normal to struggle while you’re trying to develop this good habit. So don’t beat yourself up. Start in small, easy ways. This week, you might track what you eat at breakfast. Build on that success next week by tracking breakfast and lunch, and so on. If you slip, don’t dwell on the negative. Just pick it back up.

Think of the great information you’ll have at your fingertips when you do track. You’ll have a handy reference guide to what worked — or didn’t work — for you. We tend to underestimate how much we eat, so there’s a lot you can learn when you “write what you bite.” Sure, it can be tough to see a gain on the scale, but if you can point to possible reasons for that gain in your tracker, you’ll be kinder to yourself and treat it for the learning experience it is. And imagine the power of being able to repeat the good habits that helped you lose!

Rome wasn’t built in a day, so it’s OK to gradually incorporate tracking into your lifestyle. Some feedback is better than none.


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What you can do about it today

Investigate other types of tracking.
Struggling with doing it on your computer? Try tracking on paper for a while. Or use our iPhone app to plug in foods when you’re away from the computer. Give a pocket POINTS value calculator a whirl, or use a three-month journal from the online store. Find a tracking option that fits your lifestyle.

Build a food database.
Make it easy on yourself in the long run by doing a bit of initial groundwork. Take time to look up your favorite foods and save them as Favorites in your Plan Manager.

Ask around.
Use the Community Message Boards to ask others how they tackle tracking.

Plan for success.
Define your goals, and make a game plan to achieve them. Map out a course to reach a place where you’re tracking daily. Baby steps are perfectly fine.

Use the Simply Filling technique.
If tracking still isn’t working after you’ve tried other options, this can help keep you afloat for a week so you can still have success before tackling tracking again.