Episode 7: To Track or Not to Track?

Let’s be honest…tracking behavior (especially calorie counting) is not always the most exciting thing. In some cases, it can even feel harmful. So how come research indicates self-monitoring is such an important part of behavior change? Today’s episode talks about the pros and cons of tracking and how you can find (or create) a method that works best for you.

Episode Transcript:

INTRO MUSIC: Welcome to The Compassionate Wellness Podcast. I'm Alex Treanor. I'm a Nationally Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and I am so excited you're here. The wellness industry is full of do's and do not's, should's and should not's. But I like to take a different approach. I'll be sharing all things health and wellness from a joyful, real-life compassionate perspective. If you're ready to drop the cookie-cutter approach and create a life you truly love, while eating a cookie or two along the way, let's dive in.

Hey, friends! How are you today? I hope that you are doing well. I have enjoyed hearing from you and hearing your feedback and thoughts on these episodes. So I just wanted to say thank you before we jump in with today's episode.

As you may have noticed, the health and wellness space is full of competing voices, and today's topic is one that seems particularly divisive. We are talking about self-monitoring, also known as tracking. There's usually two sides to this argument. Some professionals say it's an absolute must, you have to be tracking your calories, you have to be tracking your behavior, all the time, consistently 100%. Then we have the other side of the argument where people will say it's completely problematic, you need to be totally intuitive, you can't track anything, you need to stop doing any kind of monitoring behaviors.

As I like to do here on The Compassionate Wellness Podcast, today, we are going to look at both sides. We're going to present the pros, we will present some of the cons, and let you decide what is best for you. You are ultimately the expert on you. We'll give you the information and see what you want to do with it. At the end of this episode, we're going to wrap up with a few tips or things to keep in mind if you do decide to implement some form of self-monitoring into your behavior change routine.

Often, when I talk about tracking with my clients, I get a strong initial thumbs-down vibe from people. There is a lot of negative emotion, a lot of disappointment, a lot of past experiences that are tied up in these thoughts around self-monitoring, or around tracking. What I've noticed is that this negativity is often a result of diet culture. We have been taught over the years that you need to be your best self, and that best self is your thinnest self. If you want to be your thinnest self, you have to lose weight, which means you have to track calories. We've all heard that phrase, "eat less move more", right? And if you're going to eat less, you've got to be tracking your calories. That's what we hear.

So I want to make an analogy, because you know, I love analogies. You know that scene in every cliche high school movie, where there's the cool popular kid, that's also a serious bully. Then there's the hero of the story, the regular average person. This scene always seems to take place in the hallway of a high school, they're surrounded by the lockers and the everyday person is carrying their books. I think of that bully being like diet culture. That person that judges you, lets you know, you're less-than, you're never enough. That's diet culture. And in this scene, that person is always taking something from the everyday person, whether they are taking your lunch money, or "I'm going to knock your books to the ground," right? There's some action where it's like, "I'm gonna take something from you". I feel like that is what diet culture has done with tracking. It's all about, "You need to reduce your calories. I'm going to take every fun food that you like, away from you. You can only eat this much per day". It just feels very restrictive in the context of diet culture.

When we think of it that way, when someone is constantly taking from you, or when something is constantly taking from you, it's restricting your options, depriving you of the things that you like, you eventually stop wanting to be around that person, or you shudder every time you see that person walk down the hallway. I think that's how we tend to feel about tracking, sometimes. Even the thought of it is just already a negative experience. And that makes a lot of sense!

As I've worked with clients, there's a couple of downsides that come up quite a bit around tracking. And as I'm talking about tracking in this sense, because it's kind of in this diet culture lens, I'm mostly referring to calorie counting. I know there are other kinds of tracking; we'll get into that a little bit later. But these downsides are especially what I see correlated with calorie counting.

One of the main things we know about calorie counting is that it is correlated with disordered eating patterns. Disordered eating patterns are different from an eating disorder. Usually, it's some kind of behavior that is disordered enough that it's not considered "normal" eating behaviors. Restricted eating is actually a form of disordered eating behavior, binge eating, emotional eating. Those are the kinds of things we're talking about. I want to be very clear here that the research is not saying that tracking causes disordered eating behaviors, because that is a very complex thing. But there is an association; there's research showing that there's some kind of link, there's a correlation between these two things.

Another downside that I see often is that it's very easy to overdo it and become obsessed with the details when it comes to tracking. This ties back to perfectionism, we've talked about perfectionism in the last episode. What we tend to see is that we begin worrying about every calorie. We want the information to be exact. It really encourages this idea that there should be or that there is a perfect nutritional solution, that checks every box. That there's a way, if I track everything, I can hit every nutrient, every macronutrient, every micronutrient and here's the perfect day of nutrition. And that's just not a thing. The dietary guidelines actually recommend following a "healthy dietary pattern", with the recognition that it's an overall pattern, there is no perfect day. But sometimes when we're tracking, we tend to feel like there should be a perfect and that's what we aim for and it brings this perfectionist mindset with it.

With calorie counting, we can also become dependent on this external tool for giving us information about our body, instead of relying on our internal body cues. For example, you might feel hungry, but opt not to eat because when you open your app, it says, "Hey, you're out of calories for the day, so you can't eat anything". So you're denying that internal cue of your hunger, because this external cue, an app, is telling you, "you have no more calories for today". The opposite can also be true here. I have heard people say, "I wasn't hungry, but I had 500 calories. So I went ahead and had all the chocolate chip cookies that I could find and fit within that extra 500 calories that I had". In either of these cases, you're using an external device instead of your own internal body cues.

The last downside that I'll highlight, it's just sometimes a fun sucker. That's the only way to describe it. You might be less likely to enjoy a spontaneous moment, less likely to go out with friends, or celebrate with your family because it's hard to track that meal. "I don't know how to do that. I don't know how many calories I have". So sometimes we just opt out.

As I think about what all these things have in common, these different downsides, what really stands out to me is they all have this element of all-or-nothing thinking. It's this big pendulum swing, right? It encourages us to either be all in or all out. We're tracking every detail or it's not worth, it don't even bother. It reinforces that dichotomous approach to food.

All of these things are very valid concerns with tracking. It doesn't always lead to a healthy mindset around food and nutrition, AND at the same time, there's a lot of research that suggests that self-monitoring, in some form, is also connected with higher goal attainment and better self-regulation. The theory is that when we are monitoring our behavior, we can actually be more flexible in our thinking. We can better respond to the challenges that come up each day and we can improve the likelihood of achieving our goals.

So how do we get to that aspect of monitoring? How do we move it from this negative, fun-sucking, disappointing, restrictive mindset into something that can actually be helpful for us? Because THAT is what tracking is supposed to be. It's supposed to be helpful.

So let's switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the positives associated with self-monitoring and how it can actually be helpful as we're working towards our goals. One of the main things that self-monitoring does for us is build awareness. We can't change what we aren't aware of. If it's not in our conscious mind, how are we supposed to change it?

We have to have some recognition of what is happening in order to actively make a change. Building awareness is actually a really big part of giving us the ability to self-regulate. In order to self-regulate, to pivot when we need to, and to make adjustments, we have to be aware of what's happening. Monitoring increases that awareness. It helps keep it in our conscious mind.

Self-monitoring also fosters accountability. When you take the time to write down your behavior, or to monitor an action that you've been doing, that is a designated time for self-reflection. It gives us a pause and an opportunity to be accountable with ourself. Self-monitoring gives you this objective data to know how you're progressing towards your goal. In that sense, it's also giving you accountability for the goals that you've set and for tracking your own progress.

The last way that I will mention that self-monitoring can be helpful is that it illuminates our patterns of behavior. It gives us a better understanding of what's happening. I know I've said it probably a million times, behavior change requires context. Change is not happening in a vacuum. Doing your monitoring, doing some kind of tracking, gives you the power to see the full picture. To see the patterns, to see what is impacting what, and to know where you can make changes. By writing down and tracking your behaviors, you have the context to look at it and say, "What was happening when I was feeling really well? I felt great this day, what was different?" You can also look and say, "hey, I had great energy, what happened that day?" Or how might your sleep be impacting you? How does the stress impact you? As you're monitoring, you start to see some of these patterns and recognize what things are going to be important to focus on, and what aspects are you wanting to change.

When I think of what these positive aspects have in common, it's about more than calories. Just tracking calories is not giving you the full picture. Calories don't give you the rich context. The calories don't tell you about your sleep, your energy level. There's more to self-monitoring than tracking calories.

So we know that tracking needs a balance. It's unrealistic to expect 100% perfection and to let it rule our world and every decision that we make. And we also know that there's benefits to doing it, so we can't ignore it completely. One of my mentors says "behavior changes when you monitor it" and I think that's at the base level what we're getting at here, right?

If we're purposely wanting to enact change in our life, monitoring in some form, is going to be helpful and could be an important part of that routine.

I encourage you to take this information to consider, what might that balance look like for you? What that will look like is going to be different for everyone.

As you're considering how and if you want to incorporate some kind of monitoring into your routine, I want to give you just a few things to consider as you're thinking this over.

My first suggestion is to make sure that whatever you decide to track is appropriate for the goal that you're working on and that it's actually something you're wanting to change.

We know it's not just about calories. If you want to increase your fruit and vegetable intake, there's really no need to be counting calories. If you are concerned about your cholesterol level, for example, instead of tracking calories, you could track your fiber intake. You could track your saturated fat intake. You could track your physical activity minutes. All of those things impact your cholesterol level, so it makes sense to track those when your desired outcome is lowering cholesterol. Focus on collecting the data that is meaningful to you. So if that includes sleep, or stress, or activity level, or energy level, or even your monthly cycle, all of these things can be valuable methods of tracking that are beyond just calorie counting. Look at what your goal is, what outcome are you looking for, and what data points would be helpful and focus on collecting that information.

I also mentioned there, that it's something that you're wanting to change. If you are tracking something that you have no interest in changing, it's going to feel totally pointless. And it really is pointless at that point! Why would you collect information, if you're not going to do anything with it, right? That's just a waste of your time.

Tracking is not meant to feel like a punishment. It's a data collecting effort to give you the information necessary to make a real change that you're working towards. If you're not interested in changing something, there's no need to track it.

My second reminder for you is that the information you are collecting is objective and it's nonjudgmental. The intention and the thoughts that you have and that you bring to tracking really make a difference. Tracking is meant to be a tool. You control it; it's not meant to control you. Tracking and the information you collect is not a reflection of your worth. It's not a reflection of your value, of your morality. You are not good or bad based off any of the information that you collect. You inherently have value and tracking is not meant to impact that at all.

Keep that in mind that this is just information. It's not a judgment tool. If you're starting to feel like your tracking method is leading to self-judgment, it's time to reevaluate it. It's not necessary to be subjecting yourself to that. If it's starting to feel too restrictive, it's time to reevaluate. You don't have to be in that place where it feels like it's taking from you, that's not sustainable.

The third thing I would say about tracking is that you have permission (not that you need permission from me), but you have permission to be creative. I say this to get you thinking about different ideas. Think outside the box when it comes to tracking. If counting calories is triggering for you don't do it. Find a different way. Be creative with it. There are many ways you can track and many different methods and different data points and different types of information to track. For a few examples, to get you started, you could look at monitoring the portions of different food groups. Maybe looking at how many vegetables you can eat in a day, or how many fruits you can eat in a day. You could also look at specific nutrients. Maybe you want to build some muscle, so keeping track of your protein intake might be a place to start. You could also track your hunger and fullness levels. There's a hunger fullness scale that rates the physical sensation of hunger through fullness on a 1 to 10 scale. You could use that to say, "How am I feeling at each meal here?"You could journal your emotions or your thoughts around food, sometimes that impacts how we eat. That might be helpful to journal if you're having some concerns about emotional eating. Those are just some of the ways that you could track something completely different than calories that can still help you to achieve different goals.

One thing I encourage in my own clients is to take pictures of their meals (and if they forget to take a picture, they can just write out what it was. It's not that serious). So you take a picture of the taco or you write "hey, I had a taco," then we also journal the context of your meals. Where were you? Who were you with? Were you eating at your office desk by yourself? Or were you out at a restaurant with your friends? The last thing I have them journal is their hunger level and their emotion both before and after eating. So how hungry were you? Did you have any specific emotions beforehand, and then what changed for you after you ate that meal? This is a good way to see if the meal feels energizing, or if it felt like "oh, I overdid it, I ate too much," right? Sometimes we don't feel great when we do that.

The last thing that I will encourage you to keep in mind, and I feel like we said this word already, but keep it balanced. This is not an exact science. Any kind of tracking is not an exact science. When we look at like a calorie tracking app, let's say you eat strawberries, and you have four strawberries, and you look it up and you pick the one that's verified, right? Some of those tracking apps will have a little checkmark, "this is the official calorie count on a strawberry". And you put in "hey, I had those four strawberries". But each of those strawberries is a different size. They're not exactly whatever is in there. The point of the tracking is just to give you that awareness. So you don't have to get every detail, right? The point is not to have a perfect documentation of every detail. It's just to build the awareness.

This is a balanced approach. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. It's not a thing. It's also not all about restriction and deprivation. So if you're starting to feel that way, it's time to switch it up. Let's focus on what can you add. Instead of saying "I'm going to reduce the calories," try to get enough of something. Try to add something that you can build on.

Keep in mind that tracking is a tool. We use tools every day. But we use the tools that are helpful for the situation that we're in. If the tracking tool is not feeling helpful, if you need a hammer and tracking is your screwdriver, it's okay to not do it that day. You can function with less data. What's important is that you know your limits and that you respect them and that you use the tools that are most needed for whatever part of your journey you're on.

Hopefully we've described a little bit of the pros, a little bit of the cons, and maybe what that middle ground might look like. Overall do what feels most compassionate for you collect the information that you value, and let go of the rest.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope this illuminates a little bit more of the context and the importance of tracking and maybe gives you some ideas of how you can do it in a way that feels best for you.

If you're interested in coaching, I do have a few spots open right now. There is a link in the show notes to schedule a free initial session with me. Please do that, if it sounds interesting to you. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day a great week and I will talk to you next week.

OUTRO MUSIC: Thanks for joining me on this episode of the compassionate wellness podcast. If this message resonated with you, please share it with someone you care about. I'd love to connect with you as well follow me on Instagram @alextreanor.coaching, or visit my website alextreanorcoaching.com. And as a reminder, Treanor spelled kind of goofy, it's T-R-E-A-N-O-R. For any references mentioned in this episode, be sure to check out the show notes. I hope you have a wonderful day and don't forget to make time for something you enjoy.

References:

• Boutte, A.K., Turner-McGrievy, G.M., Wilcox, S., Hutto, B., Muth, E., & Hoover, A. (2019). Comparing changes in diet quality between two technology-based diet tracking devices. Journal of Technology in Behavior Science, 4, 25-32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-018-0075-1

• Guertin, C., & Pelletier, L. (2021). Planning and self-monitoring the quality and quantity of eating: How different styles of self-regulation strategies relate to healthy and unhealthy eating behaviors, bulimic symptoms, and BMI. Appetite, 156, 104839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.104839

• Hahn, S.L., Sonneville, K.R., Kaciroti, N., Eisenberg, D., & Bauer, K.W. (2021). Relationships between patterns of technology-based weight-related self-monitoring and eating disorder behaviors among first year university students. Eating Behaviors, 42, 101520.

• Hennessy, E.A., Johnson, B.T., Acabchuk, R.L., McCloskey, K., & Stewart-James, J. (2020). Self-regulation mechanisms in health behavior change: A systematic meta-review of meta-analyses, 2006-2017. Health Psychology Review, 14(1), 6-42.