An Easy Weight-Loss Trick

Sometimes the simplest tricks can make the biggest difference in a health and fitness plan.

That’s certainly true when it comes to keeping track of what you eat and how much you exercise, particularly when you’re trying to lose weight.

If your employees are making a concentrated effort to drop excess pounds, they could benefit from hearing about this simple trick that can have a major effect on their long-term success.

Studies show that people who track their progress on a daily basis lose more weight than those who don’t.

Besides the psychological benefit of writing down (or typing in) what you’ve eaten and the physical activity you’ve participated in on a given day, tracking food and fitness offers the additional benefit of highlighting areas in which you could bump up your efforts.

Having a record in black and white could show that you’re more likely to exercise when you do it in the morning, for example. Or that you consume fewer calories throughout the day when you eat a good breakfast.

It’s also encouraging to see how much you’re improving as you go: You’ll see an increase in calorie control and endurance and likely feel better about yourself pretty quickly.

Little factors like these can be instrumental in your employees’ attempts to lose weight and improve their health.

Encourage them to keep a log of their daily food and exercise habits with as many details as they can. It’s best to write things down as soon as possible after doing them to avoid forgetting. And be truthful; nobody benefits from fudging the facts, and doing so negates the purpose of tracking in the first place.

Maintaining a focus on the positive, such as visible improvements in progress, will keep them encouraged, and seeing that their efforts are actually paying off will do wonders for motivation.