What Gets Measured Gets Done

by Dr. Candice Dutko, DNP

This month’s article is about the value of measuring or monitoring what is important or valuable to you on your journey to improving your overall health or fitness. When left to our own subjectivity, we tend to overestimate how well we are doing with working towards a particular goal. The best way to take out the guesswork on how we are doing is to measure whatever it might be that is important to us. I will share with you some examples of various opportunities for measurement that can make a positive impact on your health and/or fitness.

Starting with your nutrition, there are many opportunities to obtain objective measurements to support your nutritional goals. One is to use a smartphone app, such as My Fitness Pal, Lose It, or Chronometer to track your food intake. Doing this provides valuable insight into how much you are eating in regard to calories, protein, carbs, fats, and fiber to name a few.

Taken a step further, I strongly encourage people to read nutrition labels and learn about portion sizes. It can be quite eye opening! As you read them, then take out a measuring spoon or a measuring cup and really learn what a half a cup looks like, or how much a tablespoon is. I at times like to use a small food scale to weigh out portions of meat and some other foods to gain knowledge about what a particular serving size looks like.

I have had some people express concern that measuring food in this way “takes the enjoyment out of eating.” That is not the goal. It is instead to gain awareness about portion sizes. For example, I still enjoy chips, crackers, and other foods regularly, but I do portion them out. There are many folks who can make a significant difference in their health by just monitoring their portion sizes.

Something else you can measure and track to support your overall health is your water intake. Generally speaking, it is recommended to drink approximately 50% of your bodyweight in ounces of water daily. (Please check with your primary care provider if you have been advised to monitor your fluid intake in relation to certain health conditions). This might mean using a favorite water bottle and knowing how many of those you need to drink to accomplish your goal. Or, I like the feature in My Fitness Pal where I can track my hydration.

To continue with technology examples of measurement, I like to suggest a step tracker. Many people focus on that one hour they might spend in the gym when really, so much of what they do outside of the gym has a greater impact. One of those main factors on overall success is overall activity level. As a general rule, it is recommended to get in about 8-10,000 steps daily to improve your health. Using a step tracker to help with this can be quite insightful! I have had folks say “I am so busy and I am active,” only to look at their step tracker and find out quite the opposite. I have experienced this myself! I thought for sure with my job at the hospital I was getting in plenty of steps only to find out I was doing more around the 7000 range. I had to make the effort then to be a bit more active!

Something else worth tracking that can have a positive impact on your overall health is your sleep. For improved health, it is recommended to get about 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. Some watches now track your sleep and I like to use my Garmin to look at this from time to time. I don’t really use it to monitor REM sleep and other similar measurements and instead look at the duration of my sleep. I also strive to maintain a regular wake and sleep schedule to help me accomplish my sleep goals.

When it comes to your fitness, keeping a journal, or using an app like CoachRx like my clients do, you can track how well you are progressing in your workouts or your lifts to see where you are improving or have opportunities for improvement. Without keeping such a journal, it is difficult to see what you would benefit from working on. Likewise, I will also use this opportunity to emphasize a progressive program to achieve your best results. Unfortunately, too many people search and do random workouts which are fun in the moment and do have their place; however, reliance on these to improve your health or fitness also yields random results.

Within my healthy habit program, I have a lesson devoted to the value of tracking or measuring and I invite you to email me or contact me via my website and I would be happy to email it to you! After reading this article, I encourage you to track something for the next week and then reach out to me and share with me what you learned about yourself!

Dr. Candice Dutko, DNP is a Registered Nurse and a Fitness & Nutrition Coach specializing in an individualized approach to wellness and fitness. Through her coaching service, Achieve Wellness & Fitness, her mission is to help people build confidence through wellness and fitness to live their lives to the fullest. She prioritizes a small caseload of clients to help ensure delivery of a comprehensive and supportive service. Her gym is located at 65 South Mountain Blvd. in Mountain Top. You can contact her at 570.704.6794 or check out her website at www.achievewellnessandfitness.com