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mistakes

Not Tracking EVERYTHING is a Mistake

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Not Tracking Everything is a Mistake

So you’ve picked out a new eating plan, and have been following this new regimen for awhile, but the scale isn’t moving, and you aren’t seeing any progress. One common mistake is forgetting to track EVERYTHING.

Please, don’t be scared off thinking that all this tracking is hard or will take a lot of time. It really doesn’t. Nutrition tracking apps have huge databases that make inputting your meal easy. Many even have barcode scanner so you can just scan something to log it. And once you have logged a food, it can be stored for future reference, making it even easier to track as you go along. The SparkPeople app even lets you copy entire meals from a previous day to another. Build this into a habit. Make it into a game to see how long of a streak you can keep up. I once managed to go over 100 days straight of logging my meals; see if you can beat that!

If you are on a diet that tracks intake, such as counting calories, macros, Weight Watchers Points or 21-Day Fix containers, you have to track everything*. The key is, that when you track everything, you will have an accurate picture of your heating habits. This can help if you’ve hit a plateau. Tracking can also reveal patterns in your habits, or “weaknesses” you have for certain foods. At one point, I found myself snacking on peanut butter far too much, so I stopped buying it.

The trickiest part about tracking is to not cheat yourself. Don’t fail to track something on purpose just because you think you “shouldn’t” have eaten it. Also, don’t fail to track small bites here or there that you’ve taken of something. A small spoon of peanut butter is 100 calories or more. (And I was having heaping spoons when I would snack.) Small handfuls of nuts are also high in calories and should be tracked. Those little bites can add up quickly!

You also want to get into the habit of tracking even on days you don’t care, such as special occasions or cheat days. It is so important to have all the information. For awhile, I didn’t track on my cheat days, although I was religious about doing so on other days. Then I started tracking my off days and realized that my deficit during the week wasn’t enough to make up for all that I was eating that one day during the weekend. I adjusted my intake, and the pounds came off steadily after that.

Remember, a food log is just data. Data doesn’t judge. And your body will keep an accurate record of what you’ve eaten, whether you write it down or not. So get into the habit of tracking your food; having that data can help you make informed decisions to help you reach your goals!

*If you’d rather be on a diet that doesn’t require tracking, check out my free Ultimate 13-Diet Comparison Guide to find one that might suit you better!

Meal Prep Mistakes

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Are you making these meal prepping mistakes-

After taking all that time to plan out your meals for the week, I want to caution you about a few meal prep mistakes I’ve seen others make.

Wasting Food

You need to commit to this meal prepping thing. If you buy food but then when the time comes you don’t follow through and cook it, the food will spoil and you’ll end up just throwing it away and wasting food and money. And then you’ll have to buy something else to eat, which wastes even more money. And it is likely that in the moment, you’ll order take out or make something that’s not as healthy as you would have otherwise.

Trying to be too fancy

One of the ways to avoid wasting food is by NOT getting too fancy with the recipes. Roast leg of lamb with an apricot reduction and a side of zuppa toscana sounds a-maz-ing. But it’s not really practical for an every day dish. Keep your weekday meals simple and quick and you will be far more likely to stick to your plan. See the end of this article for three recipes you can download that are quick and easy to add to your meal rotations.

Not knowing “thine self”

In our household, when we prep our lunches for the week, it’s the exact. same. meal. And it’s the exact same meal for months at a time. In colder months we have steel cut oats with ground turkey. In warmer months it’s salad with grilled chicken. That’s it. Keeping it simple lowers the barrier to preparing those lunches ahead of time. And that works for us. However! If you can’t handle eating the same thing for lunch for months on end, DON’T. Don’t prepare a week’s worth of salads, and then on Wednesday decide you’re sick of them and make a run up to Chipotle instead. If you need some variety, try making extra food when you make your dinners so you can have enough left over for lunches during the week.

Keep a backup meal handy

Even the best laid plan only lasts until the first arrow leaves the bow. Maybe despite the planning, you forgot a critical ingredient. Or perhaps due to traffic you are running late and don’t have time to cook the meal you had previously planned on. Or you’re just having a horrible day and spending time cooking is NOT what you want to do. This is when having a backup meal is really handy. A backup meal should be something that you can cook up quickly, but also lasts a decent amount of time should you not need it right away. On days we are “not feeling it”, we turn to chicken sausage that we heat up on our Foreman Grill. Just grill them up for a bit, and eat with ketchup. Not the healthiest meal in terms of micronutrients, but because it is chicken, it’s lower in fat than bratwurst, and much lower in calories. Still super delicious and satisfying though!

Hopefully these tips can help you stick to your meal plan. Don’t forget to download your free recipes!

For more tips on avoiding meal prep mistakes, check out my Ultimate Guide to Meal Prep.