Read Online Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin - Free Book Online

sad when I overheard a woman at a conference say, “I was asked to give a TED talk, but I thought, ‘I can’t do it, I’m not at a good weight right now.’ ”
    Until well after college, I’d considered myself overweight—not so overweight that it affected my health, but enough that it affected my self-image—and my weight really bothered me. Finally I managed to get to a number where I felt more at ease, and it’s been a huge relief to feel comfortable with my size. This measure of ease still seems new, however, and my desire not to gain weight shapes many of my habits. I try very hard to make healthy food choices, and I exercise fairly regularly (though not very vigorously). Still, I could be doing better, and like just about most people, I loved the idea of painlessly dropping a few pounds. I wondered if monitoring would help.
    For people who want to eat and drink more healthfully, keeping a food journal can be extremely effective. For instance, one study showed that dieters who kept a food journal six or seven days a week lost twice as much weight as people who did so once a week or not at all. Although keeping a food journal sounds straightforward, I braced myself for a challenge when I decided to try it. No one ever mentions how hard it is to keep a food journal, but I’d already tried and failed three times.
    Along the same lines, I’d tried before to use a pedometer to count my steps. According to a 2003 study, Americans, on average, walked 5,117 steps each day, half of what’s recommended. Research shows that wearing a pedometer and trying to hit a goal does make people more physically active, and when I’d worn a pedometer in the past, I’d definitely walked more. I’m the type who really relishes getting “credit” for every step I take. I’d eventually stopped wearing my pedometer, though, because it often fell off (once, into the toilet), and it looked ugly.
    As I was considering various methods to track my eating and exercise, I read a New York Times article about the Jawbone UP band , and I decided to try it. I’d wear a wristband to track my steps and my sleep, and sync the band to my phone through the headphone jack. I’d use my phone to read my results and to record the food that I ate.
    But when the package arrived in the mail, my enthusiasm waned. As I lifted the small black and silver band out of its plastic case, I realized that I’d acquired yet another gadget to learn to use, to keep updated and charged. And more cords. “I’d better be more careful with this cap,” I thought, as I dropped the little piece of plastic onto the floor.
    However, although I’d expected to find it onerous to sync the wristband to my phone twice a day, by the second day, I was syncing away, because I loved watching my activity numbers rise. Walking a mile requires about 2,000 steps, and I aimed to walk 10,000 steps each day. While research suggests that taking 10,000 steps does reduce obesity and heart disease, there’s no particular evidence for 10,000 as opposed to 8,000 or 12,000. But 10,000 was a satisfying number, so I stuck with it.
    The UP band also helped me do a much better job of food tracking than I’d ever done with my little notebook. In a surprisingly short period, I started to feel uneasy until I’d recorded food in my log. I’d think, “It’s too much trouble to go get my phone now, I’ll add this yogurt later,” but before long, I was hunting for my phone whenever I ate something.
    As I tracked, I noticed several aspects of eating that make monitoring difficult. For one thing, it’s often surprisingly hard to gauge “servings.” We’re poor judges of how much we’re eating , and studies suggest that we can eat servings that are about 20 percent bigger or smaller than a “serving size” without realizing it. Also, in what’s called “ unit