A quarter of Brits will make New Year’s resolutions but only 24% complete them.
The most common resolutions are pretty closely linked: 47% want to do more exercise, 44% are aiming to lose weight and 41% wish to improve their diet.
I’d count myself as one of those people. I’m mostly in pretty good shape but I’d like to lose about a stone, especially around my middle.
I don’t really like doing cardio workouts though because feeling my heart pounding, sweating and feeling dizzy makes me panicky. Similarly, reducing my calories down too much can cause me to feel faint and trembly, and that can trigger anxiety too.
I know rationally that the only way to lose weight is to have more calories going out than coming in though, so I turned to the food logging feature in the fitbit app.
It’s been a big help. I can enter the food that I’m planning to eat that day and then I’ll know how much exercise I need to do to create a calorie deficit. Very often that has meant that I’ve had to go for a walk in the evening while I’m listening to music. If I wasn’t tracking my intake, I’d definitely be in my PJ’s on the sofa.
And when it’s really cold, like now, and walking is a lot less inviting, I can cut my portions down. I haven’t majorly changed my diet so far. I’ll just have one less sausage or swap cake for fruit and yoghurt.
I’ve lost 5 lbs in 3 months and cut my bodyfat down by 1%. I’m not claiming that my weight loss has been dramatic, but that was never my intention. I just wanted to moderate my behaviour slightly to get the scales moving in the right direction.
Now I can start to refine it. For example, I’ve started logging water on my latest board. Some research suggests that you can burn 2–3% more calories in the 90 minutes after drinking water, and being well-hydrated has a whole host of other benefits, so it’s an easy win.
I’ve also been using Fitbit to track my macros. I know that I have too many carbs and fat and not enough protein. I can start to address that with subtle changes to my diet, such as choosing a nutty cereal with no added sugar, having salads rather than sandwiches or eating high protein yoghurt.
It’s easy to log my food. I can scan bar codes using my phone and I eat the same things a lot of the time anyway.
I’ve used other food logging tools in the past but, if you forget for a few days, it becomes too much of an effort catching up again. The difference with fitbit for me is that it has a pretty good idea of how many calories I’ve burned on a particular day, so I can see clearly whether I’ve earned those Pringles or if I need to try and rebalance my budget.
I have taken small steps towards taking more exercise, losing weight and improving my diet and I’m now lighter than I’ve been since November 2019.
