The Importance of Tracking Your Progress
Pragmatic Laziness: How One Graph Beats Expert Advice
In 2008, a 258-pound Phil Libin decided to experiment with laziness.
He wanted to lose weight. This is common. As is also common, he wasn’t particularly keen on diet or exercise. He’d tried both on and on for years. The intermittent four to eight-week programs helped him drop pounds—and then his other behaviours helped him gain them back even faster.
He began to suspect there might be an easier way: doing nothing
Phil had a simple method in mind: “I wanted to see what effect being precisely aware of my weight would have on my weight.”
Phil lost 28 pounds in six months without making the slightest attempt to change his behaviour.
- Tim Ferris: The Four Hour Body.
Case in point that my bi-weekly weigh-ins, whilst appearing way too intricate and detailed, are needed to really benefit from any change in lifestyle. I will in fact be carrying out these measurements everyday - the progress you see in every two weeks is because I see there to be no real benefit for putting measurements up everyday online. I’ve lost time that could be attending something more worthwhile, while you poor readers (if not already doing so reading this now) are wasting what hours your eyes could be spending on something much entertaining on the Internet.
Many folks say to ignore the scales and measurements for an entire week before seeing their numbers again. My mother, who once gave Weight Watchers a try for a couple of months, hated not knowing how her diet was working until her next weekly weigh-in, by which point meant it was too late to do anything about it.
While the numbers day-to-day may look unconvincing, be patient and stick with it. In my previous bout of weight loss I was frustrated looking at such a slim decrease in weight, but persevered long enough to see the progress overall at the final stage.
