Alcoholism
How to Cheat Your Weight Loss Mobile App
6 ways we fudge our weight loss app data without even realizing it
Posted November 21, 2013
A few years ago all we wanted in life was to get married, have 2.5 kids, and make a comfortable living. Now all we really want is to be under our calorie goal. Each day is a delicate balancing act of calories in / calories out. Between meetings and diaper changes, we check our handy weight loss mobile app to see the up-to-the-minute verdict...are we over or under?
We have a love/hate relationship with the weight loss app. You feed it information and it reflects back an image of YOU, just like a mirror. What you ate. How much you ate. How much you moved. How much you didn’t move. That late night Dunkin Donuts stop? Check. You skipped your workouts 5 days in a row? Check. It’s all there. Or is it?
Sometimes it’s hard to share all of our secrets with the app. We fudge the data so the mirror gives us a more wishful view. Here are 6 common ways we fudge our data when we aren’t quite ready to look directly into that mirror:
1.
1.
Monday – 1,550 total calories
Tuesday – 1,600 total calories
Wednesday – 1,610 total calories
Thursday – 1,596 total calories
Friday – 2,300 calories (went out for dinner and drinks)
Saturday – 2,120 calories (dinner at Mom’s)
Sunday – 2,400 calories (tailgating)
Average daily intake Monday-Thursday = 1,589 calories/day UNDER GOAL!
Average daily intake Monday-Sunday = 1,882 calories/day WAY OVER!
Difference = 293 calories!
2.
2.
3. I Have A Need for Speed. This is the sister cheat of # 2. When entering exercise into the app, sometimes we overestimate our speed, intensity, and duration. If the app shows 4 different swimming speeds, we assume we were at the fastest speed and log that one, even if only 2 of our 12 laps were at that speed. Using apps that log your speed via GPS are helpful to stay honest, but some activities cannot be logged with GPS so be careful about which way your bias leans. If all your guesswork is in your favor you may find yourself frustrated with slow or no weight loss when it’s really the case that you aren’t hitting your calorie goal.
4.
4.
5. No Occifer, I Wasn’t Drinking Tonight. Weight loss app’ers sometimes forget that alcoholic beverages count as calories. Alcohol has been referred to as “empty” calories but it has calories nonetheless and those calories should be counted! I have seen lots of app’ers stop recording their calories after dinner and before the drinking starts. One, two, four, ten beers just never make their way into the app. You know who you are!
6. Taking the Long Way Around
6. Taking the Long Way Around
We’ve all been there. Why is looking in the mirror so hard?? Maybe because it feels bad. It’s less about what you ate or how much or little you exercised, it is how those numbers make you feel. Honestly confronting reality will be easier when you remove the emotion and view numbers as information—information that helps you learn to do better next time. Next time you open up that app, don't just peek at the mirror, go all in.
Mirror, mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land? –Wilhelm Grimm