5 Things You Need To Track Now For Optimal Fat Loss

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Hey there, John here and I hope you are kickin butt with your fitness and fat loss goals.  Today’s post I wanted to share with you 5 of the most important things to track if you want to get serious about your fat loss program.

And I’d love to hear your comments in the comment section below!

As a San Jose Fitness Trainer and San Jose Bootcamp trainer I know I ask a lot of my clients with tracking things but the fact is, it works!  Here are the top 5 things you can start tracking now: 

1) Food Intake

I’m not talking about scribbling on a piece of paper here and there and basically eating the same thing you do now.  I’m talking about actually weighing and measuring things, looking at the backs of food labels to be accurate, and ultimately looking things up online if need be!  One client, Todd just emailed me yesterday saying that he uses an app on his phone www.Myfitnesspal.com and I frequently tell others to go to www.CalorieKing.com.  Whatever site it is, I’ll bet you will be surprised at the number of calories you consume on a daily and weekly basis!  Remember, there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat so you need to either burn that off or consume less to make it happen! 

2) Water

The most essential nutrient for our bodies.  We are over 70% water so it makes sense to make sure you are hydrating yourself properly to allow for waste products to be eliminated from your body and to hydrate your muscles and cells.  Most of us are very dehydrated since we don’t drink enough water and consume to much soda, coffee, or other bad liquids that usually add calories.  In addition, caffeine is a diuretic which will cause your body to uruinate more frequently…..which means more dehydration.   Shoot for 50% of your body weight in Ounces/day.  Yes it is a lot and you need it!

3) Sleep

I hear ya, we live in Silicon Valley and you have a family…6 hours uninterruped may be a blessing!  However, you need to do your best to get the sleep you need which is ideally 7-9 hours per night.  Without getting too technical on you, minimal sleep will disrupt particular hormones in your body, leptin and grehlin which can drastically affect your appetite.  Ever feel like the day after a sleepless night you were eating like a human garbage disposal?  That’s leptin and grehlin at work.  Bottom line, get your sleep.

4) Superfluous Down Time

Don’t get me wrong, after a long day I like my down time as well to veg out and just let my brain turn to mush after hours of being “on.”  However, sitting in front of the tube for hours on end or sleeping in over 10 hours (in what dream world I hear you saying) or even too many social events will lead you down a dark path to the city of Fat.  So track it over the course of a week and if it is too much, then toss in some more exercise or do something somewhat more productive like read….you know top to bottom, left to right, group words together to form a sentence like you’re doing now.

and last but not least…

5) Exercise

Everything you’re doing.  How much cardio? How long? What heart rate? How many calories being burned?  How many days of weight/resistance training?  How many calories burned? There are plenty of tools out there to help you now like Heart Rate Monitors by Polar or Garmin, DotFit or Bodybugg devices to track calories burned throughout the day and many others I’m sure. 

Log everything above for at least 7 full days since routines tend to change on the weekends vs. the weekdays.  If you really want to dial things in then do it for 1 full month.  Tedious, time consuming and at times extremely annoying?  Yes.  But watch the results fly and smile at the sweet embrace of success.

Have a good one and I’ll talk to you soon!  And don’t forget to share the post with a friend or leave a comment at the bottom!

Dedicated to your success,

John Heringer