Awareness and Accountability

After six years on this journey, I think that the most important things that I've find to help maximize the weight loss opportunity and maintenance is developing and exercising awareness and accountability. I think that most of us that have had a serious weight issue also have had what I often refer to as 'Three Monkey Syndrome' aka 'Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil.' This lack of awareness and accountability can and have had a crippling effect on many of us. The good news is that we can develop ways to be aware and in tune with what we consume and our level of activity. What we each do to become aware of our actions and the impact that they have on us varies depending on our needs at the time, but the need to be aware never goes away.

What do you do to be aware of your intake and activity?

Do you have things that you do to help you be accountable to yourself?

Have the tools you use to be aware and accountable changed over the course of your journey?

I look forward to hearing from you.

I tend to right things down. Everything! I have surgery tomorrow, but I have a huge binder of everything I have collected and written down in the last 6 months. I need to see it so I believe it.

Robin,

Congratulations on your upcoming surgery. I wish you every success in your journey.

If you have a 'smart phone' you may want to see about getting the My Fitness Pal app. You can use it to log your intake and it will help you see the 'value' of the foods that you are consuming. You'll be able to see the protein, carb and fat counts. You'll be able to see this in pie chart, graph or text. This is a great way to learn the value of things that we consume and you don't have to reinvent the wheel by having to log all of the details of each item. I also got myself a pedometer so that I could see how much I was actually moving... or not ;-).

Wishing you all the best,

Personally, I think being aware and accountable of intake is great. However, even more important in my mind are the triggers we all have individually that can cause us to eat in non healthy ways and ways that are counter productive to weight loss and weight maintenance. Most of us probably know how to eat - we've heard it at nauseum for years and practiced on and off for years. You get the idea. What many of us have never tried to do is figure out the why behind the eating. I think discovering the why is even more important than knowing the what. 

Kairk,

I think that we are actually very much in step with one another. I think that awareness of what you are eating alone it rarely enough. I think that it's important to see what we are doing and understand what the triggers are associated with both the positive and negative behaviors. We can't change what we do not or will not see. Like so many of us, I knew 'what' to eat and 'how' to eat, but that doesn't mean that I necessarily could or would do that. I think that your observation is on the money. I personally have found that it takes a combination of awareness of not only my intake and activity, but also my mood, motivation, etc... that really make the biggest impact on my ability to maintain my weight loss in the long term.

I use myfitnesspal.com to log every bite I take and my daily workouts.   Easy to share with my pcp and keeps me accountable.  I started using them in January and find them easy to use and very helpful. 

I have been having trouble going to the bathroom after my surgery. I don't know what the problem is, but I would like get some options please. thanx

Jason.

Hi Jason

If you are experiencing issues with constipation, you should contact your provider's office. Know that this is a common issue during the first few months to a year post op. Generally, it's because your diet is primarily protien based and you will not be consuming that much fiber early in your post op journey. As your mother may have told you when you were a kid, fiber is like natures little broom and helps to keep everything moving. My program had me take MiraLax or the generic equivalent because it is a such a gentle laxitive. They also suggested that I incorporate Benefiber. Check with your RN or RD to see what they suggest. The good news is that as you are able to have a more fiber rich diet as your eating plan progresses,. This will be much less of an issue. 

I hope that helps some.

All the best,