Accountability is the engine of improvement

I had some digestive-health issues this year. Perhaps a culmination of issues from years past. This time it was scary. I’ll spare you the details. 

I knew I needed to do something but had no idea what. It was severe, so I saw a doctor.

He couldn’t offer me any conclusive answers, which was disappointing. Although I understand he did everything he could. Someday science will have all the answers. But not today.

In the meantime, I’ve got two options: either make some changes or take some chances.

I decided change was in order, and I did the only thing I knew for a fact is an effective preventative measure: diet and exercise. 

What do I know

Nothing. Not a thing about medicine.

I’m not a doctor, or anything resembling one. I’ve never been mistaken for one. I just want you to know: this is not medical advice.

In my career so far, I’ve spent nearly 15 years in the health and wellness industry doing marketing work for companies who provide alternative and natural health (read: non-conventional) information, products and services.

My proximity to these non-conventional solutions afforded me the opportunity to experience their efficacy first-hand.

And in my experience, they didn’t work. I always dismissed the lack of results because I was young and healthy. Or maybe I was taking the wrong things the wrong way.

Who knows? Whatever the reason, I didn’t observe any results from any supplement or probiotic-rich food.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to them. After all, even conventional medicine didn’t have all the answers I needed (but it does have lots).

Many people claim life-altering effects related to alternative health supplements and remedies. And if you’re one of those people, I’m your biggest fan (and if anything, a little jealous). If it works, it works. Good for you.

While it didn't work for me directly, I got some indirect benefits. All that time in the wellness industry afforded me with access to information about diet and exercise.

And more importantly, plenty of motivation to take part. 

In fact I’ve often said the best thing that ever came from my time in the wellness industry is the proximity to health-minded people. I talked and thought about health more. It made me want to work out more and eat better.

I have no doubt that I’m a healthier person today thanks to all my time in the wellness industry.

While I can never really substantiate that, what I can do is share some great results of a little experiment I did recently. 

Accountability is drastically improved when you add measurement

“That which is measured is improved.”

When I was coming online in my late 20’s (a.k.a starting to think for myself -- sorry if I’m a late bloomer) someone dropped the above quote on me. And it stuck. 

There’s lots of truth to it. One such truth is that accountability leads to results. And accountability is drastically improved when you add measurement.

Knowing that, I set out to measure my consumption habits to help keep myself accountable. 

Starting in early May, and for the following 120+ days, I undertook the tedious task of tracking everything I ate and drank.

To help ease the burden of logging 3+ meals a day, I turned to my favorite resource: the spreadsheet.

A peek at the Input tab of my spreadsheet. A particularly responsible period of time I hand-selected for you, internets.

And boy was it tedious. Not so tedious that I’d ever not log a meal, but tedious enough that I would actually think twice about grabbing a snack because of the consequences.

Literally.

Knowing full well that if I ate something, I’d have to fill in my sheet, and indicate whether or not I was consuming gluten, dairy, caffeine or alcohol. This frequently stopped me from eating a snack when I wasn’t hungry. I’m still surprised at how effective this was. I really love snacks.

If that’s not a testimony for the power of accountability, I don’t know what is.

To up the ante on accountability, I added a dashboard of reports to my spreadsheet. It gave real-time updates on how often I did certain things: overate, had dairy, had gluten, had caffeine and drank alcohol.

Some of the stuff I put on the Dashboard I created.

Some of my experiences in marketing taught me about the innate human desire to achieve good scores (finally, after all these years, I found an application for all this useless marketing knowledge!).

The added guilt of knowing each and every drink or gluten-full snack would negatively affect my scores factored daily into decisions I made when reaching into the fridge or pantry.

Through my logging and reporting schemes, I had created a high amount of accountability for myself. And it worked.

Results speak for themselves

From May 4th to September 15th, I logged 472 different meals (including snacks and beverages). That's 135 days of consecutive note taking.

These were my results:

    From January to May when I started this journal, I had run a total of 15 miles, despite having set a goal of 20 miles per month. From June through August, I steadily progressed to achieve over 40 miles in a month in August. My mile time was reduced from over 10:00/mi to under 9:00/mi. 

    By July I had dropped 8 extra lbs. This followed a 22-lb weight loss goal prior to the start of this journal effort. But that weight loss had stalled entering the month of May. This journal helped me start a  significant new trend -- despite having already dropped a lot of weight recently.

Check out that slope after May!

    On August 30th, I achieved another 2021 goal: completing a 10k run.

I attribute these results to my focus on my eating habits. I could no longer pretend I was eating well all week. I had to prove it. My improved diet reduced my lethargy (and excuses to skip running) and I made drastic improvements. 

Yes, I track my running time, running distance and body weight. These are additional examples of accountability and I’ve been doing them forever. But they paled in comparison to the accountability of my meal logging spreadsheet.

What “diet” worked for me?

Again, not a doctor (or nutritionist).

At this point, at 41 years old, I don’t believe there is one specific diet that helps humans lose weight the best.

I’ve tried paleo (and variations of it), low carb, grain free, keto, fasting, intermittent fasting and more.

And they all have one thing in common: caloric restriction.

I’ve long subscribed to the general belief portion distortion (or the excessive amount of food we are served) at restaurants has been rampantly out of control. 

But this Reddit post really opened my eyes. The underlying rule for all the branded diets is the same: don’t eat so much!

It’s not a new concept. “Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” is another popular way to underscore it. 

And when this infographic showed me there’s no magic bullet to the specific ingredients in a diet -- and rather the common thread was caloric restriction -- my mind was made up. And any diet I had previously believed in just seemed laughable by comparison.

This mindset has worked great for me. When I need to lose weight, I eat less and I eat less bad food. And the meal journal helped keep me accountable to these practices.

What’s next?

I have an annual weight goal. I’ve met it already.

I have a monthly fitness goal to keep myself active and exercising.

At the end of the year, I’ll set bigger goals for 2022.

As for meal logging, I am going to stop. I want to see if I can maintain the habits I’ve been practicing for the last 4 months.

I’m going to look at the time away from the spreadsheet as a bit of a reward for a job well done.

If this exercise has taught me anything, it’s that holding myself accountable to my diet will save me from having to return to the exhausting meal logging.