My name is Beckie and I am a yo-yo dieter. Now there are a lot of things I would love to change about myself. At the top of the list has got to be my love/hate relationship with food. Ever since I hit my mid twenties I have either been dieting or gaining. Throw in two babies in the mix and it has been a BATTLE! I have been working hard in 2013 to get down to my goal weight of 150 (I am 5’ 8†with a medium build).
Now as impressive as that may sound I can diet with the best of the them. I can be crazy disciplined for a time to get the weight off. What I have never been able to do is to maintain. So I am on a mission to figure out how to maintain my weight and not pack on the pounds again. So I want to share with you the accountabilities I have placed in my life.
1. Fitbit One 
I shared this in my favorite things post about a month ago. I love this thing. It track my steps, stairs climbed and my calories burned each day. It also helps keep track of sleep too, although I don’t use this feature. The nice part about it is that I can look at the Fitbit One mid day and see how many steps (or lack thereof) I have done and make sure I am staying active throughout the day. My goal is 10,000 steps a day – which is roughly 5 miles. You can also connect with other friends to encourage or compete with them – whichever motivates you. I like the Fitbit One because I can wear it on my bra in between the girls. I don’t like wearing a watch so this works best for me – but if you want to wear a watch the Fitbit Flex 
or Fitbit Force
will be better for you. Plus it syncs up to My Fitness Pal.
Fit Bit username: infarrantlycreative@gmail.com
This is a free app on your phone where you can keep track of your calories each day. If you don’t have a smart phone you can also use it online. My Fitness Pal syncs up my Fit Bit and will automatically adjust my calories burned. However, you do have to know what time you exercised in order to make sure you don’t double count your exercise with the Fit Bit’s calories adjustment. Again, you can connect with friends and encourage one another along the way.
MFP username: beckientim
3. Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor
I got this for Christmas. Since I hit my goal weight it is even more important to know as close as possible how much I am burning each day when I exercise. With the Polar FT4 Heart Rate Monitor you put the chest strap under your bra and it measures your heart rate. That information is sent to the watch you wear during exercise. It also dings to know when you are not in your target zone, which helps keep me motivated to keep up the intensities of my workouts. Many times when I go for a run my treadmill will say I burned 500 calories and my Polar Ft4 says 415. Many times that difference of calories makes a huge difference.
4. Accountability Partner
While I am connected with many of my friends via Fit Bit and My Fitness Pal (connect with me – I am a great cheerleader!). I have one friend where we actually take pictures of our scale each time we step on and send it to one another. She has been a blessing to me – encouraging me along the way when I am slacking and rejoicing with me when I have a victory. And she isn’t weirded out when I send her pictures of me in my bra and underwear because I am proud of myself. HA! Plus I can text her when I am struggling or temptation is killing me. I would highly recommend finding someone like that for you.
5. THE CHART
This is something my husband and I came up with. Unfortunately my husband is like me and he is a yo-yo’er too. So he came up with the CHART. In our bathroom we have our names and dates on a spreadsheet poster and we “weigh-in†a certain day of the week and write it on our list. We are hoping this creates the self-motivation not to let ourselves go because the number is right there in front of us and both of us can see it.
Now this is just what is working for me. You may not look at a scale but rather measure body fat or simply measure yourself by slipping into that pair of jeans. I just know for me I need tangible numbers to stay motivated. I am writing this post to give you guys some tangible resources but more importantly, as an accountability to me. I have never talked about my up and down on the scale before on the blog. I am hoping acknowledging it will be another layer of accountability in my life.
Here is to weighing the same (or less 😉 at this time in 2015!
P.S. This post contains my Amazon affiliate link. Should any of you preciouses decide to spend your Christmas money on any of these gems I will get a small kick back. Thank you very much!
Booya is right Beckie, Congratulations!
Congrats Beckie! Having a multi-layer-accountability scheme is obviously working really well. Having both a carrot (cheerleading and encouragement) and a stick (visible failure) makes succeeding all the sweeter. Low calorie sweeter 😉
Unbelievable! Every time I do see a picture of you it looks like your weight is great. I always thought “thin” when I saw pics. When you said 5’8″ and a goal of 150 I about died, mouth dropped!! That is because I am 5’9″ and about two years ago got down to 170 and I felt quite trim (size 12–very loose). I felt if I lost more it would be too much. I had lost 30 pounds from no treats. Simple as that. My daily cookie intake (fell off the wagon) got me right back up to 195. For now I am OK with that. I beat myself up for awhile but knew if I wanted to be strong enough I could do it so I needed to shut it or deal with it. I have never had a weight problem or dieted. Just gettin’ older and can’t pack away what I used to! But for now I’ll enjoy the cookies. You are so DANG slim woman!!! Congrats!!!
So awesome! Way to go!
That’s terrific, Beckie! For me since I’m older (51) it becomes even more important. I have lost family members to heart disease so my goal is simple. Eat less, move more. So far I’m doing great with the eating part but haven’t done so well on the exercise part. I obviously haven’t found what works best for me, but I’m working on it! Congrats!
I think it’s key to find something that you do enjoy, whether it’s a healthy snack or a workout routine. If you hate it and simply suffer through, it’ll never stick. Best of luck finding something that works for you!
Thanks so much. I need the encouragement! 🙂
And you are too sweet! Just keep it coming!!! 😉
Ha! Thanks! 😉
Hehe… Thanks!
I have been meaning to lose the “last 5 lbs.” for the last 5 years since having my daughter. Well, I lost 12 lbs. in one month due mostly to having acute gastritis after an allergic reaction to antibiotics. Every time I went to eat it felt like I was trying to stuff food down AFTER eating a huge meal – even though I was completely empty. So, I had to make every food a very good choice to get better by Christmas. Anyways… I had no excuses before since I had studied nutrition for well over a year a while back (thinking I wanted to become a dietician). My advice to anyone… read The Body Reset by Harley Pasternak. I essentially have had to follow this type of regime for 2 months since getting sick (not to anger my stomach with fried foods and such). He really has the best approach to sensible weight loss with fairly quick (yet lasting) results. I have studied almost all of the popular gimmick diets and complicated programs even after my studies… and they ALL fail somewhere — whether it be delete a food category such as carbs or many diets assume that every calorie is equal (NOT!). Harley even gives vegetarian alternatives and I like the way he explains WHY certain foods as essential and HOW they work. He explains this in an EASY to comprehend way (unlike my old school textbooks, LOL). Anyways… just thought I’d share because his regime is the closest big, huge summary of my year’s worth of very expensive post secondary textbooks. Plus it obviously works… I’m still down 10 lbs. and have eaten a LITTLE bit of chocolate every day since Christmas day
Thanks so much for sharing. I will check it out.