Having Trouble Seeing Progress? Try Tracking It

Certain health goals require major commitment in order to accomplish. Whether it’s hitting a certain weight goal, meeting a certain goal in athletic performance, or getting long-term health issues to resolve with chiropractic care, the reality is that there is a process that has to happen in order to get your body to change.

Tracking your progress can help you look back and see the slow change that can happen over months (or years)!

With that process, there can be ups and downs along the way. Something I’ve seen in my own personal life, and with helping patients with certain health goals, is to track the information. That information tells the story of what’s actually happening, and can help you get away from the stories you might tell yourself that really may or may not be true.

At the very basic level, this is just the raw numbers. What the scale says every time, or what your splits are in the gym. I’ve actually had patients with daily headaches, for example, and create a daily log of the intensity on a scale of 1 to 10, then we can chart it out. That way, if on a given week that headache is worse than their new usual, we can circle back and see that maybe there was a blip in the wrong direction, but overall the trend is good.

If you wanted to take the tracking to another level, you can also add in the details along with the numbers. For example, creating a food diary can help identify what foods and portion sizes have created weight loss; what fuel worked best for you before athletic activities; and perhaps what foods could trigger certain symptoms like headaches.

With technology where it is today, we’re also able to track our sleeping, number of steps, and really any thing you’d like. All of these are tools at your disposal, and the key is to use them to your advantage and to help guide you.

- Dr. Scott Minton