What Are You Doing To Stay Accountable?

I love when I get the opportunity to talk to anyone with my FT Family, and I had an opportunity to talk to one of my FT brothers who I haven’t seen in a while. In fact, I think today was the first time I saw him this month. Which, once again, this shows that even though we don’t see each other that often, how we continue to support each other. We were having the typical, hey how ya doin’ conversation, and then he asked if I ended up meeting my U2 goal. I know, you’re probably wondering what does this have to do with accountability. But, bear with me, I’m getting there! :) And, because I haven’t met my U2 goal quite yet, due to some minor setbacks, I got that, “well, crap, he had to ask” feeling. And with a disappointing tone I said, “No, not yet.” And then I proceeded to tell him about the Advocare challenge I’m on, and basically just telling him the things that I felt contributed to me not meeting my goal. His response to me was, it probably doesn’t help people keep asking you about it. And before responding to his comment, I stopped for a second thinking to myself it does kind of suck to have to say I didn’t meet my goal; but, then as I explained to him, that’s actually a good thing. It helps keep me stay accountable to my goals. See, told you I would get to the point! Ha! :)

 

Now, you hear A LOT about accountability in health and fitness, and if you have some type of accountability plan in place, it will definitely make meeting your goals easier. There are many ways you can keep yourself accountable and I want to share some of the things I do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and other ways that have helped me be so successful with my health and fitness journey.

 

As far as daily, there are two things that I contribute to my success, and that is daily journaling of my nutrition and workouts. I write down what I eat, the times I eat, and even make sure I’ve figured up the calories to make sure I haven’t gone over or under what I need for that day. I also have a workout journal that Michael provides to his clients if they choose to use it, and I write down all my workouts from my sessions to even my cardio. This allows me to, not only monitor what I’ve done for that day, but helps me know when I’m improving. For example, I’ll take an AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) workout from like six or eight weeks prior, do the exact same workout and see if I can get more rounds in than I did the last time. I carry these journals with me EVERYWHERE! I call it my health and fitness bible and anytime I need to refer to it, 99% of the time I can whip it out of my bag or purse. In fact, I had it in my purse and one of the girls with me asked, “Did that just happen?”. Yes, yes it did….LOL. But, these two things are a major key to being able to monitor your fitness and nutrition so you will know where you need to modify when something’s not working, or if it’s working where to keep doing what you’re doing.

 

Now something I do weekly to help me stay accountable, is I weigh in every Saturday. Even if it’s up a little, or a lot sometimes, it helps me know where I’m at as far as the scale. At this point, Michael and I are able to look back on my nutrition (or my week in general, especially if it was a stressful week for me) and modify where needed. Of course, we don’t only focus on the scale, and that’s really important that you realize the scale isn’t everything. You can be up a few pounds on the scale, but because you’ve improved in other areas, that week you might have hit a new PR or even able to finally zip those pants that you’ve wanted to wear for so long. So, even though we don’t want to focus only on the weight, it’s still a good weekly tool to help keep you accountable. Notice I said weekly, DO NOT weigh yourself daily or even multiple times a week. Pick a day and time to have has your weigh in time, and weigh every week on the same day and time. I weigh in every Saturday morning right before our 9:00 AM group session. And if at all possible, use the same scale. This will help you be more consistent and help better guide you with accurate results, at least that's my opinion anyway! :)

 

Each month Michael likes for us to have some type of goal. It can be any type of goal, weight loss, new PR in deadlift, more pull-ups, or even just doing something outside your comfort zone. Anything that will give you something to help you stay focused on your goals to make sure you don’t get completely off track. This month he wanted us to focus on getting outside of our comfort zone, so I have getting a tattoo and rock climbing. Well, one is done, my tattoo, and I’m working on setting up the other. It might not be this month, but I will get that done.

 

Some other things we do to help keep myself accountable, we do assessments so I can see how I’ve improved on inches and even body fat percentages. I also have this blog as a tool. Being able to get on here and write like this, not only helps keep me accountable, but it really helps so many others and that is something that really makes me happy. I love knowing I’m giving back to others who need a little more encouragement and motivation, and that they are becoming healthier just because of something I’ve written. But, I will say, one of the best things you can do to help keep yourself accountable, is verbalize what you want to do and even how you’re going to do it. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, anyone that you see that can help you stay accountable. When you do this, many times when you find yourself in those weak moments, you tend to get through them without giving into the temptations. For example, if you tell your co-workers you want to lose 20 pounds and in order to do that you have to really watch your nutrition, if they see you about to give into the temptation of buying the candy bar out of the vending machine they can say, hey what about that weight loss goal you’re wanting. Now, and this is from personal experience (and you’ll know from my last blog post), you want to make sure you’re telling the people who truly support you. Those who truly want you to be successful will be able to call you out in a positive way, without it coming across as mean or hurtful.

 

This morning when I was asked if I had met my goal or not, he didn’t ask in way that made me feel like I was a failure, but just in a way that reminded me, no I haven’t met my goal and yes I know what I need to do to get there. And that’s the other thing I REALLY want to stress. Set your goal, figure out what you have to do to get there, go for it, but if for some reason along the way you have a bad day don’t worry about it. So you had one bad day, get back on track the next day and keep going until you meet your goal. Also, if you don’t meet your goal in the time you set yourself, again don’t stress about it! I’m technically about a month past what I wanted for my U2 goal. Am I disappointed? Yeah, a little, but I know what and where I had issues; and I know what I have to do to get there so I’ll just keep moving forward. And as Michael has told me many times, “It’s not a matter of IF you meet your goal, but WHEN you meet your goal.” Don’t ever change your goal just because you don’t meet it when you wanted to, instead keep your goal insight and just keep moving forward until you get there. Because, as long as you continue to keep yourself accountable, you WILL meet your goal! What are you doing to stay accountable?