Measuring success

In business, when a leader wants to make a change, the first thing that must be done is to set a goal and establish a clear way of measuring progress toward that goal. The measures must be reviewed and discussed often so that people can learn and make the necessary adjustments along the journey toward success. That's a lesson that I learn and re-learn at work almost every week.

Making a personal change works exactly the same way. The challenge with personal changes, such as achieving health goals, is being disciplined about measuring and adjusting as the days pass. At least, that is how it works for me.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about a decision I made to make the necessary changes to become healthy. I set goals to track what I'm eating every day and to bring my lunch to work with me. Since then, I have faithfully tracked my nutrition everyday in SparkPeople. And I took my lunch with me all but one day. So far, I'm feeling really great about these changes. It is working... I have lost 1 pound each week.

SparkPeople has been an incredibly helpful tool. After the first week, I reviewed each day's nutrition and discovered that I was only meeting my daily calorie goal about 50% of the time. I also noticed that I really was not getting anywhere near the 3-5 daily servings of fruits & vegetables that people are supposed to have. This past week, I set a new goal to eat a minimum of 3 fruits or veggies everyday, hoping the calorie issue would just resolve itself.

It didn't.

I am now meeting my fiber goal consistently, and I'm feeling better, with more energy. But I'm still only achieving my daily calorie goal about 50% of the time, and I only lost 1 pound this week, just like last week. I'm feeling a little bummed about that...an aerobics teacher once told me that you lose more when you increase the fruits & veggies. But I guess it couldn't really just be that easy. The moral to this story is to be wary of advice from your aerobics teacher. I never did like aerobics classes.

As I reviewed all the progress graphs from the past 3 weeks, I confirmed what I already knew...when I am able to plan ahead what I will be eating, I do very well. When I don't...or when we eat out or go to parties, I always blow my calorie range for the day. The harsh reality is, I need to find a way to consistently stay within my calorie range. Ugh. I don't like that part. But I am making a new commitment today to do better than 50% this week.

I can count some other successes though. David and Abbey have both joined me in my quest to become healthier. We've been going on evening walks together most evenings. Abbey is learning to track her foods in SparkPeople, and experiencing the same challenges I am. And we're all talking about how things are going with our nutrition goals everyday. I'm counting this as a huge win. I'm hoping this will make it much easier for all of us to stay focused on improving so that we can meet our goals.