Accountability – It’s Up to Us

Every day for at least the last twenty-five years I write down the kinds of exercises I do and the number of minutes I do them. This every day habit is both self-motivating and a great way for me to be accountable for taking care of my body. Another way I motivate myself is wearing a pedometer. My goal is to have 12,000 steps recorded on it every day.

I’ve never felt the need to keep a food diary because my weight fluctuation of two or three pounds up and down has never been a problem. In fact, now at age seventy-one I’m within a pound or two of what I weighed at age twelve, when I finally lost all my baby fat. I make sure I eat healthy. I’m also fortunate that I don’t crave sweets.

So, I’ve always felt more in tune to my exercise program as a means of keeping me fit. However, many people these days are too heavy and need to be attuned to both how much they eat and how much they exercise. The only thing they lack is what it takes to stay motivated on their own and the understanding that accountability is up to them.

I recently reconnected with a woman I met several years ago at a writing workshop at Esalen Institute in Big Sur California; I was immediately interested in the work she’s been doing for the past twenty years as a weight loss coach. Lynda Beth Unkeless motivates her personal clients and the groups she has educated at community colleges and support groups to write down what they eat everyday, including the number of calories consumed. She in turn responds everyday with a return email. She also speaks to each of her clients, typically women in their forties, fifties, and sixties, every week by telephone.  

This reminds me of the exercise buddy system I used to have when I first started taking group aerobics back in the early 1980s. If I didn’t show up for our six in the morning class I was interrogated thoroughly about my absence when I next returned. But, you know, all that chastising definitely helped. I’ve been exercising regularly – and in the last twelve years regular means every day for me – since I was in my mid thirties.

Because the idea of keeping a daily food diary with calorie counts is a little off-putting to me, I asked Lynda Beth a few questions about her work and how she motivates her clients.

MS: I would imagine keeping a daily food diary with calorie counts is a lot of work.
LBU: It can be at first, but once people get the hang of it it can take as little as five minutes per day, maybe as much as ten minutes. That isn't much to spend on having the body and freedom to feel good in your own skin. I also encourage people to list and learn their most favorite and most used “go to foods.” Keeping the daily food log is so much easier with that information close at hand.  Also some people use “apps” and then cut and paste their daily logs when they send their food log email to me.

MS: How do you motivate people to be successful at it?
LBU: By helping people to:
- Connect emotionally with the real reason(s) and reward(s) they want and need to lose weight and continually remind them when they fail or want to give up. If the client is connected to their compelling reasons and rewards, it’s so much easier to do the food log, exercise portion control, and know the calories in the foods they eat.
- Develop a habit of verbal affirmation that helps deal with the temptation; i.e., I really want to eat that cookie, but I want to wear my sexy black dress much more!
- Practice creative visualizations; i.e., imagine yourself walking into a class or family reunion looking wonderful in clothes that fit beautifully!

MS: Do you have to train your clients how to do it?
LBU: I do, but it's surprisingly easier these days with calorie apps, and Googling the calorie count of any food in a few seconds. 

MS: I’ve been Googling around the calorie counting sites and have gotten completely overwhelmed. What sites do you recommend?
LBU:  www.myfooddiary.com and www.fitday.com

MS: What advice would you give our readers to help get them started?
LBU: Writing down goals and reviewing them frequently is key to being successful in any life endeavor. In weight loss, it's about personal accountability for what you eat every day. Writing and tracking the food you eat with a daily goal to attain is one of the best tools you will ever use!

I really think Lynda Beth has been a forerunner in this field, and she stumbled upon this technique losing and maintaining the loss of forty pounds herself. Because obesity is such a concern now, I’ve heard comments about keeping a food diary on network news lately, and I’ve seen many recent articles about how to do it on the Internet. 

The American Academy of Family Physicians provides tips on what to record in your food diary:
- Exactly what foods you ate -- don't forget to include any condiments, sauces or other extras.
- The amount of food that you ate, in either size or volume.
- What time of day that you ate, and where you were when you ate.
- What you were doing when you ate, and how you felt when you were eating.
- Whether you were alone or with someone else.    

Another site lists tools needed for embarking on such a program: kitchen scale, measuring cups, and the ability to read nutrition facts labels.

If you want to contact Lynda Beth about how to get motivated yourself and to find out more information about her, please visit her websites Lighten Up! With Lynda Beth and Want To Change. She is trained in motivational interviewing, the art and science of helping people learn how to change.