By: Marcos Hernandez

I recently competed in a weightlifting meet where I had to cut weight in order to get into my weight class. It wasn’t fun, and with all the time I saved from eating + drinking I found myself thinking about the concept of tracking.

In order to be successful, I tracked what I deemed important:

1. How many hours I slept

2. Weight before bed and upon waking. This weight change could be divided by the number of hours slept to give a rough estimate of how much weight I could expect to lose in the final night before the competition.

3. ALL food. You’d be surprised at how many times there are little sauces here, little bites there… it all adds up! I have the benefit of being in a gym, and never have to worry about coworkers bringing in food for everyone. But still, I needed to know where I was in order to track how my intake affected the number on the scale.

4. Water. Part of the process was knowing how much weight could be lost from water, and I was drinking over two gallons per day some of the 10 days prior to the meet.

I did all this tracking with my phone, using the health app built into the iphone and an app called MyFitnessPal. If you have an iphone and open the health app, you can see how many different things it’s possible to track, everything from sleep to steps taken to minerals consumed (don’t ask me how they got THAT).

If you get a wearable fitness tracker, like an Apple Watch, Fitbit, Oura Ring, or Whoop Band, it can track your sleep for you, along with dozens of other health markers. The Whoop Band has recently spiked in popularity within the gym. Using the data acquired through wearing the band 24/7, Whoops software can provide a score for how recovered you are. Hey, if it makes recovery sexy, I’m all for it!

Back to tracking, this level was way too much for me to sustain, and without an end goal (the meet) in mind I wouldn't keep up with the twice a day weight tracking. I actually track weight about once per week, on Saturday morning. 

I DO normally track my food. I’m just that type of person, and enjoy the freedom it provides by taking all decisions out of the process. Do the numbers allow it? No? Then I can’t eat it. Makes my life simpler, but I understand we are all wired differently. 

What tracking my food for such a long time does provide is a good amount of data so I know how my weight fluctuates with different food intake. I then used this information to make an informed decision about how to cut calories in order to bring about the changes I needed with minimal adverse effects. The worst thing to do is just stop eating altogether and show up underweight and underfed. Certainly not ideal competition conditions.

As the day of the meet got closer, I began tracking my meal times as well, biasing towards the morning so the weigh-in would be at my most fasted state. While this style of eating is popular (intermittent fasting, or IF), without a specific reason to get the number on the scale to read a particular number I’m not sure I see the point. I found that I felt extremely full eating about 2/3 the amount of calories as normal because my eating window was condensed, and if I continued to eat that way over days & weeks I’d get smaller by virtue of consuming less calories. IMO it would be better to get these calories spread throughout the day and monitor total caloric intake, making stepwise changes to the total number, which is where tracking becomes involved and can provide clarity.

Lessons learned from tracking everything under the sun:

1. It’s very helpful to take baseline measurements. Just knowing how much weight it’s possible to lose overnight helps provide some perspective to the magical number on the scale everyone is obsessed about and how variable it can be on a daily basis. 

2. It’s good to have a rough idea of how much water is consumed every day, even though many hydration guidelines simply suggest drinking when you’re thirsty, until you aren’t. While I did have to run to the bathroom all the time, the skin around my fingernails hasn't been cracking as much, so I’ll keep this level of water intake up during the winter months.

3. Intermittent fasting isn’t for me. I eat too fast and often found myself with a stomach ache. I much prefer to spread the meals throughout the day and as long as I ate solid food instead of shakes I never got too hungry.

My parting advice: Try tracking either sleep, water or food, for one week, and see how you feel. Maybe track what times you eat, and write a note about whether or not you felt hungry or, like me, if you got a stomach ache. Don't track forever but give it a go during a full week so you can get an idea where little bites, drinks, treats, snacks, and missed hours of sleep are finding their way into your life so you can make informed decisions about where to focus your lifestyle improvement efforts. 

By: Marcos Hernandez:

“If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there” – Lewis Carroll

We all learned in math class that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Most people know one endpoint of this line, where they want to go, their goals. Everyone’s goals will be different and typically fall under the categories of performance, health, or body composition/aesthetic related. 

Having a goal, a point b, is certainly important. However, in order to make progress towards your end goal, you need a starting point for reference, a point a. Your coach can help you draw the line between these points, but how can we help without an accurate starting point? If the finish line is point b, how are you assessing your point a? 

This is where tracking comes in.

Tracking comes in three tiers: daily/weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Daily/Weekly (Performance):

This is the small stuff, the things that need to be written down early or else they will be forgotten.

Workouts: Write down the weight you use on the lift of the day, and write down the time you got in the day’s conditioning. It’s important to know what we did in the past so you can improve week to week, even if it means you are using the 1.25lb change plates. More math: What’s 2.5*52? (1.25lb plate on each side, 52 weeks in a year). This kind of linear growth isn’t possible indefinitely but you get the idea. People either use a workout journal and write it by hand, use an app on their phone like Beyond the Whiteboard, or take a picture for reference.

Food Log:This is often the most illuminating, especially for those who have goals related to body composition. Try either writing it down in a journal or using an app like MyFitnessPal. Even the act of writing it down might be good motivation to skip that dessert, but if you do indulge write it down and keep it moving, no need to dwell on the treat. Remember, the food log only works if you’re honest and record everything, not just the healthy stuff.  

Sleep tracking:There are lots of apps and devices out there, and a quick search will turn up plenty of suggestions. But be aware of how many hours you sleep each night, and your sleep/rise times, shooting for anywhere from 7-9 hours.

Monthly (Aesthetic/Body Composition):

This is the best timeframe to measure body composition.DON’T track your weight on a daily basis. It fluctuates wildly and leads to all sorts of value judgments. Instead take pictures of yourself in your underwear. Do it at the same time of day and in the same mirror so you can see the difference when doing a side by side comparison. Similarly, track how your clothes are fitting and take pictures in some of your normal outfits for further evidence of changes to your body’s shape.

Yearly (Health):

This is the level dedicated to health, and a reasonable timescale for how long hard work takes to show up. There are two recommended ways to track here: blood work and, if desired, a DEXA scan.

The blood work will be reviewed by your doctor and they can tell you how your various short and long term health markers are looking as well as any if potential interventions or adjustments are necessary to keep you healthy.

A DEXA scan is the scientific way to measure body fat percentage and bone density. This is useful information if weight loss is necessary for your health, as recommended by your doctor, or you are getting up in years and need to make sure your bones are robust and able to support you for years to come.

In conclusion, your coaches can help you determine the quickest route to your goals but they have to know where you are. Come armed with this type of information, or be ready to keep track of this information, if you really want to make some progress!