Week 1 of 8 (I’ve got the info, now to use it!)

Here we are at the end of the first week of 8-weeks of “getting sh!t done” We’ve got about 10 people along for the ride, including Tara at Sweat Like A Pig (she blogged about her goals here).

As explained in the original post, I’m using the next 8 weeks (7, now!) to knuckle down and get more consistency in a few areas of life: work and business (which I won’t be blogging about cos it’s a future project), and eating. I won’t ramble on about it again so check out the post if you want.

So, one week in and what have I learned?

I used the first week simply to track, watch and assess where I’m at. Unsurprisingly, the numbers tell me that I’m eating too much. But I also realised that my food is kind of all over the place. Some days I’ll eat too little (because I’m busy, or haven’t got myself organised, or because I just don’t realise how little I was eating). Inevitably, a couple of days of this leads to overeating.

I can also clearly see repeat offenders in my diet, things which aren’t bad per se but which are definitely tipping me into over-eating territory. Protein and energy bars/flapjacks being one! But now that I’m aware of just how many I’m eating/how often, I can reduce it. Doesn’t help that I’m about to write a protein bar product review article for a client…

Armed with all the info, I can crack on with levelling things out and getting some consistency in there. Even if all I do is end up on the same average numbers across the week, I think it’ll do me a lot of good to be more balanced and mindful of it on a daily basis.

As we head into week two, then, my goals are to keep tracking food (all the time, not just when I remember or when I’ve eaten things I’m not mildly embarrassed to write down!) and to try and even things out across the week. Oh – and I’m going to go to bed earlier! I suspect that fixing this one (bad) habit could help me in all sorts of ways.

How are you guys tracking, measuring or motivating yourselves?

I do a lot of writing stuff down (as you might expect). I keep a paper journal, which I write in every morning (just a few minutes to jot down what I want to achieve, what I need to do, etc) and then every evening (rounding up how I’ve done and how I’m feeling). I also journal online (Penzu – it’s great) which I have open on my work computer and update as I go along.

For bigger-picture stuff, such as how I want to tackle this 8-week challenge, I just use a wall-planner and work back from my final goal, breaking things down into weekly or even daily goals.

I don’t use apps or any online tracker, mainly because nothing online can ever properly replace writing things out by hand for me.

Let me know how you’re getting on!

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Week 1 of 8 (I’ve got the info, now to use it!) is a post from The Fit Writer blog.

Nicola Joyce – the Fit Writer – is a freelance copywriter and journalist who writes for the sport and fitness industry. Her main website is here.