Weight monitoring II
November 06th, 2008
Posted by Dr.Fancial
Keeping track of your weight takes less than a minute per day. Once your logbook is started, making the entries in it will quickly become part of your daily routine to the extent you hardly think about it any more. Weight records are most useful if you record your weight every day, at the same time of day, under the same circumstances. The best time to weigh yourself is right after you awake for the day. Since you won’t have eaten since going to sleep, your body will tend to have its most consistent weight at that time. Always weigh yourself dressed the same way. The easiest way to get consistent results is to weigh in stark naked.
If you keep the logsheet in a book near your scale, you won’t forget to enter your weight every day.
Even if you’re using the Excel worksheet as your permanent log, it makes sense to record your weight on paper. At the end of the month, you can spend 5 minutes entering the data into the spreadsheet from the paper log. You can, if you like, enter your weight into the computer every day but unless you’re obsessed with tracking day-by-day results, it’s much quicker to scribble the number on the paper sheet and enter a whole month’s data in one swell foop. (Besides, people like me shouldn’t consider touching a computer right after getting up–operating complicated machinery when possessed of the cognitive powers of a sea slug and the disposition of a polar bear with a toothache is most unwise.)
Keep the log for the current month on the first page of the “Daily log” section of your logbook. If you forget to weigh yourself or can’t weigh in that day (for example, when you’re traveling), make a note in the weight column of the log indicating what happened. Don’t leave the column blank–that’s likely to cause you to enter the next day’s weight in the slot for the missing day and get the day and weight columns out of whack.
If you aren’t using Excel, calculate the daily trend figure as described on page and enter it in the “Trend” column. You could calculate all the trend numbers at the end of the month, but it’s better to spend a few seconds every day rather than look upon it as a page full of calculations to do each month. If you keep a cheap pocket calculator next to your logbook, you can calculate the trend in less time than it takes to write the number in the book.
If you’re following the optional exercise program in chapter , record the level of exercise in the “Rung” column, right after you complete the exercises for the day. If you skip a day, or aren’t participating in the exercise regime, leave the “Rung” entry blank.
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