Sunday 18 September 2016

Self-monitoring

Self-monitoring is a behaviour change tool that can be used for almost any aspect of your life. A classic example is the progress grid Benjamin Franklin used to track his goals. He would track his progress towards each of his goals and would be able to see where he was falling short, and where he was succeeding. This same idea can be used towards fitness goals. Self-monitoring your fitness goals essentially translates into tracking what you want to change. If you are a competitive athlete and want to improve your lateral jump, then you may want to track your lateral jump distance on a weekly basis. If you are looking to lose weight, then you may track your weight on a weekly basis. If you are trying to eat healthy, you may want to track your food intake every other day. The important part about self-monitoring is regular tracking and reviewing.

Tracking your body weight is an important measure when weight loss is your goal. However, weight will naturally fluctuate day to day, so it can occasionally be a mental detriment when weight is not changing as desired. The best recommendation is to weigh yourself once a week around the same time and record it, ideally in a graph. The graph will let you see the weight change over time in a more visual manner. Focus on the long term trend, not the day-to day changes. Since weight is naturally changing, tracking weight alone is not an ideal measure of improved health. Couple it with food/calorie intake and/or workout tracking.

If healthier eating habits are your goal, a common method to view your progress is to track your food or caloric intake. Keeping record of your meals can become a burden and will often lead to stopping tracking altogether. A less cumbersome way to track food and calories is to choose three days a week. Ideally pick two weekdays and one weekend to fully capture your weekly eating habits. Compare your weekly intake to your goals, making note of where you succeed and what needs improvement.

Keeping up with your workouts is a very motivating way to see progress and encourage physical activity. Workout tracking can be done in many ways, such as counting visits to the gym, amount of weight lifted, or timing your runs. Make sure the metrics you pick are inline with your goals. If you are just starting out, then set a weekly goal for gym visits and track those. If you are training for a marathon, track your run times. When tracking workouts, do some research, set realistic goals and work with your trainer. Setting goals that are too advanced for your current physical activity level can be disheartening and unhelpful in reaching your goals.

No matter what you are tracking, figuring out the proper tool for self-monitoring is an important step. The classic pen and paper is still a great option, but with smartphones readily available, there are many self-monitoring apps that can be used. I personally use MyFitness Pal for calorie tracking, another good option is Lose It. Both apps offer simple workout tracking as well. For more advanced workout tracking, JeFit or Fitocracy both are good options. There are many more trackers out there for free, so find out which ones will provide the measures you are looking to track.

The success of self monitoring relies on constant tracking to the extent that it becomes a  habit. That being said, if you miss tracking a day or don’t meet your goal for that day, don’t beat yourself up about it. If a day gets missed, simply make a note of why you missed that day. This can be valuable information to help you change your routine, if necessary. For example, if you have a major project at work that is causing you to work late and then become too exhausted to workout in the evenings, making note of those days will show you the pattern you might have otherwise missed. You can then use this information to change up your routine and perhaps workout in the mornings, or put more emphasis on weekend workouts. Self-monitoring is about seeing your habits and taking steps to change them in order to reach your goals.

References




Wednesday 7 September 2016

Calories and Macronutrients

Calories and macronutrients play an important part of any fitness goal, as they are required to fuel your body and nourish your muscles. So what are they? Which ones and how much should you be eating? I’ll start off going over what calories and macronutrients are, then give some tips to determine how much of each you need.


Calories are, scientifically, a unit of energy. In the nutrition sense, a calorie is the amount of energy you will get from food. Over the course of a day, you will burn a certain number of calories just for your body to survive, this is your Basal Metabolic Rate. This means that, even if you slept all day long, you still burn calories. Moving around and doing your daily activities will burn even more calories. So, you burn calories on a daily basis, and just like a fire, you need fuel to sustain this burn. That is where food comes in. The calories listed on nutrition labels are the estimated amount of calories you will gain from consuming that food. I say estimated because the amount is calculated in a lab, and the human body is  more complicated than a controlled experiment. That being said, it’s still a good estimate to use the nutrition labels on food. The basic breakdown of how many calories you should eat is dependant on your goal. To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than you burn. To maintain weight you should consume the same amount of calories that you burn. Similarly, to gain weight you need to consume more calories than you burn. Each person burns a different amount of calories depending on their metabolism, gender, age, weight, and other factors.


The calories in your food can be broken down into three macronutrients; carbohydrates, protein, and fat. The primary purpose of any macronutrient is to provide energy. The breakdown calories into grams for the macronutrients is as follows

Macronutrient (1g)
Calories
Carbohydrates
4
Protein
4
Fat
9

Let’s take a closer look at each macronutrient.


Carbohydrates bring to mind starchy food, like bread and potatoes; but they are actually defined as sugars. Aside from bread and potatoes, carbohydrates are also in fruit, milk, and anything sweetened. Carbohydrates are used for long term energy and for fueling your brain. Due to the use of carbohydrates throughout the day, a person should typically consume a lot of them. The recommended amount of carbohydrates in a person's diet is 45 - 64 % of total calories.


When you picture protein you will often think of meats, but nuts, beans, and dairy are also high in protein. Protein is used as the building blocks of our body and are broken down into amino acids for use in growth and repair. If you don’t have enough carbohydrates to fuel your day, protein will step in and be used to sustain you. It is not ideal to have your body run off of protein since it is needed elsewhere. The general recommendation for protein intake is 0.8g for every kilogram of body mass. This number will change depending on your fitness and dietary restrictions. For example, someone who is looking to build muscle and lifting a lot of weights may need as much as 1.7g for each kg of body mass.


The third macronutrient is fats.Fats are in pretty much everything and, despite their bad reputation,are an essential part of your body’s metabolism. Fats are your energy reserve. While you burn carbohydrates throughout the day and protein goes to repairing your body, fat gets stored for future energy burns and are essential during hard and long exercise sessions. Fat does not immediately get stored as body fat. An excess of calories, regardless of the macronutrient, is what causes body fat storage. Fats also are a source of fatty acids which are important in transporting nutrients throughout your body. The tricky part with meeting your fat intake is ensuring you choose good fats. Fats are divided into trans, saturated, and unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are the ideal fats and can be found in avocado, nuts, seeds, and cooking oils. The recommended intake of fats is 20 - 35% of your daily calorie intake.


Your required calorie intake will be unique. Work with a nutritionist to accurately determine your calorie intake and macronutrient amounts. The following two links can be used to get an idea of your calorie intake and macronutrient breakdown.


References