I'm old school. You can tell I've been doing this awhile. Tracking used to be called journaling. I don't know why the word makes a difference to me, but it seems easier to say "journaling" than "tracking".
Tracking is work. It makes you stop and pay attention and think. It is a job that you have to do to loose weight.
Journaling is relaxing. It makes you stop and pay attention and reflect. It is a moment you take for yourself to ensure progress.
Are they different? Nope. It's the same thing. You wright down in your tracker/journal what you ate, how much it was worth, and how much you have left. So does the word make a difference? For me it kind of does. Journaling sounds friendlier. It could just be me.
No matter what I call it though, it is hard for me. I have been on this roller coaster for what seems like forever, and it never gets easier for me to track. The WW app on my cell phone is slow, so I tend to not use it much (when it was updated and I could use it at all, that is). I loose the paper trackers immediately after I write down the first thing. I'm good for one days worth of tracking on paper, maybe.
So I think a new technique may be in order. I hear a lot of the women in the meeting talk about how they planned their days points. They write in the tracker in the morning or the night before. Then they know how they will be spending their points all day. It always seemed a little too structured for me. After all, I don't cook and my chef (darling hubby) might come up with something wonderful for the evening meal. How can I plan around that?
So, it comes down to making a weekly menu. I think we have to do it. I think I have to have him help me more. So this weekend, I'm going to try to find time to sit down and plan a menu for the week (or two?). I hope that will cut down on the shopping trips and list as well, and possibly save some money at the same time. I have some fabulous WW cookbooks to pull recipes from (though I need to recalculate the PointsPlus). Several of those books haven't even been used.
Hey sis!! That's a great idea and it makes everything so much easier. Once a week just before I go shopping (I don't do it until I know what day I am going otherwise it makes it too hard to do), I sit down for ten minutes (with my kids if they are around at the time) and plan what we are going to have for dinner each night. Then we write our shopping list, only putting food on there that we will need for the meals that we have planned. It makes it a lot quicker to actually do the shopping, it makes it cheaper because we are only buying what we need and we can plan ahead for the days when we will be home late. It's also good because it gives everyone in the house an input into what we are eating and teaching the kids about healthy eating too. Good luck with it and I hope it works for you as well as it does for me!!
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