Do I have my support system(s) in place?

I have several things that I use a support system to keep me on track to stay healthy. I track multiple things and I work with a fitness coach for accountability purposes.

I track my food and water intake, I track my sleep, I track my exercise level and amount. I do this tracking in the Younger Next Year Journal (Crowley & Lodge). Unfortunately, I stopped tracking all of those data points cold turkey when I traveled earlier this year and I haven’t gone back to it until I spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure out what is going on with gaining weight.

I also track my weight and steps using a Fitbit and an Aria wireless scale. I had let my daily totals slip, I forgot to wear my Fitbit a couple of days, or I would forget to put it back on when I changed clothes. I saw a couple of weekly totals not meet my 70,000 step goal and I was nonchalant about stepping it up the following weeks. All of this meant that for these last three months, I have been below those targeted step counts. Now, I need to keep vigilant about moving a minimum amount of steps no matter what I have planned for the day!

In doing this recall, I also realized that I needed to track things to keep everything top of mind. Do I always want to live this way, tracking everything? Definitely not, but I need the tracking at the moment until my habits are more ingrained and more constant.

The last, but arguably most important part of my support system is the people. I had dropped my regular talks with a fitness coach and I think that seemingly small bit of accountability was keeping me on track enough to maintain or keep losing slowly. Without it, I let things slip, imperceptibly in some cases, until I started adding up each area to see a total I didn’t like. I need to return to those regular talks! One action I took after looking at these things was to put together a list of a few people that I can call to go walking or to talk about things.

I didn’t realize how important a working support system was to my success. I think I need to keep these support systems in place until my habits are set in stone! Or maybe I will always need a support system. I don’t know yet, but I do know that I like having a support system in place, that I like having a little friendly competition for steps each week, and that I like the connection with people. So for now, I will keep tracking things and I will keep a person-to-person support system in place.