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Is Our Obsession with Tracking Helpful or Harmful?
Send us Fan Mail
Are you tracking your weight/progress/calories/sleep/exercise/whatever-else-there-is-to-track?
We had a feisty conversation about it (always feisty!!), and feel that tracking can be helpful in some situations (e.g. when you are training for a certain goal, when you are recovering from an eating disorder, or when the person tracking is in a good place with food, exercise and their body).
BUT: tracking can distract us from trusting our body, listening to our intuition and reduce our ability to feel what we need/want. Having a device or a spreadsheet tell us how long we slept, or how fast we ran, or how many calories are in a chocolate croissant is information. BUT, the information may be:
- inaccurate
- irrelevant
- out of context
or make us feel
- obsessive
- anxious and
- like we've failed.
As intuitive eating and movement coaches we are here to support people in finding their way back to trusting themselves and their bodies, to start listening again to how and what we feel. If a sleep tracker tells you that you had a 'bad night', you may well start the day feeling bad (EVEN if the tracker is wrong, EVEN if you are actually feeling fine). If a calorie tracker app tells you how many calories are in a food, you may not eat it (EVEN if you really fancy it, EVEN if calories are an arbitrary and inaccurate number). If your fitness app tells you that your run was slower today than the last time you ran, you may feel like you are regressing (EVEN if there were very good reasons for running more slowly, EVEN though you did manage to go for a run rather than skip it).
On balance, tracking everything from food to weight to exercise is probably less beneficial than we think. It may give us a snapshot of information, but it can't provide a full picture of the context and nuance of the tracked item.
We'd love to hear about your experience with tracking things: do you do it? How does it make you feel? Have you found it helpful or triggering?
Support the show
Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine. If you'd like exclusive access to our supporter-only channel click here.
We appreciate you
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By Christine Chessman & Ela LawSend us Fan Mail
Are you tracking your weight/progress/calories/sleep/exercise/whatever-else-there-is-to-track?
We had a feisty conversation about it (always feisty!!), and feel that tracking can be helpful in some situations (e.g. when you are training for a certain goal, when you are recovering from an eating disorder, or when the person tracking is in a good place with food, exercise and their body).
BUT: tracking can distract us from trusting our body, listening to our intuition and reduce our ability to feel what we need/want. Having a device or a spreadsheet tell us how long we slept, or how fast we ran, or how many calories are in a chocolate croissant is information. BUT, the information may be:
- inaccurate
- irrelevant
- out of context
or make us feel
- obsessive
- anxious and
- like we've failed.
As intuitive eating and movement coaches we are here to support people in finding their way back to trusting themselves and their bodies, to start listening again to how and what we feel. If a sleep tracker tells you that you had a 'bad night', you may well start the day feeling bad (EVEN if the tracker is wrong, EVEN if you are actually feeling fine). If a calorie tracker app tells you how many calories are in a food, you may not eat it (EVEN if you really fancy it, EVEN if calories are an arbitrary and inaccurate number). If your fitness app tells you that your run was slower today than the last time you ran, you may feel like you are regressing (EVEN if there were very good reasons for running more slowly, EVEN though you did manage to go for a run rather than skip it).
On balance, tracking everything from food to weight to exercise is probably less beneficial than we think. It may give us a snapshot of information, but it can't provide a full picture of the context and nuance of the tracked item.
We'd love to hear about your experience with tracking things: do you do it? How does it make you feel? Have you found it helpful or triggering?
Support the show
Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine. If you'd like exclusive access to our supporter-only channel click here.
We appreciate you