Keep fit with data

Problem

Getting bit overweight? Or maybe bit too much? Don’t worry, me too! One solution that I found to be working wonders is simply keeping track of how much you go up (or down).

Solution

The solution is a weekly log. Simply, every Sunday or any day of the week you wish, you step on a scale first thing in the morning, take a measurement and log it on a spreadsheet. Simple as that. In my case I am using Google Sheets because it is free, on the cloud, and accessible from everywhere.

The sheet has only 2 columns, one for the date and one for the value of your mass (e.g. Kilograms). Example is shown below:

You might have noticed that the log above shows measurements from 2014, which at the time of writing this post (April of 2021), it’s 7 years old. Correct, that is the power of habit.

Habit

Based on reasearch, a habit can be build by reapeating an action approximately 21 times. Measuring weekly your weight and adding to a sheet, will soon become a habit. Before you notice it, plenty of data will be there.

Conclusion

The way to keep fit is simply tracking your weight and noticing changes at weekly basis. If it goes up, pay attention and find ways to fix it. Instead of going unnoticed and 10+ KG later you say to yourself “I got fat, need to lose weight”. Whatever gets measured gets managed, this is how you keep fit with data. It is all about control and not diet. Going up is fine as long as it goes down.