Accuracy + Consistency

We want results and we want results now, so, what should we be focusing on? Surely if I eat well all week, I can just wing it on the weekend, right? Surely eating healthy is enough? When it comes to tracking your eating, two pertinent factors for you to take into account will be accuracy and consistency.

One of the issues that can arise with many of our clients on a fat loss program is that things aren't tracked correctly and things often get missed. This can become an even bigger problem when things are getting changed up regularly and you're using a wide variety of food. So just because you enter (or forget to enter) something into MyVision it doesn't always mean it's a true representation of what is happening, which can lead to you feeling like you're doing the right thing, working hard but not seeing the results you want.

Here is an example of a simple mistake a client of mine had been making recently, entering a 200 gram eye fillet instead of 200 gram scotch fillet into his food diary, this was a huge difference of 50 calories. Now you might be thinking 50 calories, that's not too bad but taking into consideration this is just a single item of food and you're eating between 2-5 items of food per meal and eating between 4 - 6 meals per day the margin for error in your tracking can be well into the 100s of calories per day.

On average most Vision client who are aiming to lose body fat are in a calorie deficit that is anywhere from 300 - 700 calories per day depending on a few factors that are specific to that client. Taking into account that the margin for error due to entering the wrong foods, not entering the correct weight for foods (guessing) or just forgetting to enter foods altogether is anywhere from 400 - 1500 calories (using the 50 calories discrepancy per food item model). This can potentially not only eliminate your calorie deficit it can also put you well into a calorie surplus (weight gain).

For the people that track really well until the weekend I haven't forgotten about you! You can also use this discrepancy model. When it comes to "weekday trackers" (people tracking perfectly during the week) it's a Monday to Thursday job, leaving Friday - Sunday free to loosen up. This can mean you've got three days where you could possibly be consuming an extra 4500 calories! Definitely enough to remove the calorie deficit for the whole week for some people. Also keep in mind this is someone that is still tracking their food in their food diary, just not accurately. For those that aren't tracking at all - the discrepancy become even greater.

To give yourself the best chance at losing fat and maintaining a calorie deficit ensure you're not only tracking consistently but also tracking accurately. Plan and weigh your foods and if your do have times where this is unrealistic do the best possible but ensure the rest of the day is 100% accurate (weighed and measured) to ensure that there is minimal room for error.  This can seem like a daunting task but once you start doing this consistently it becomes a habit that you can maintain long term with ease.