Measure!

Disclaimer: I am no nutritionist. Have had a weight problem all my life. This is not a post about losing weight!

“What gets measured gets done” – Peter Drucker

Time and again I am impressed by how many times Drucker’s philosophical statement actually comes true. Right from KPIs measured by businesses to improve their operational processes right up to tracking your personal spending to control those aimlessly bought items just because you were bored and had nothing to do; Drucker keeps reminding me that for absolutely anything that I wish to achieve in my life, I need to measure it first.

I have been struggling with my weight since, well my birth. So much so that being fat has been a part of my life (yeah and my blog). About 6 months ago I decided that I go from very fat to moderately fat, so that I have less trouble lunging my huge self around. Being a Drucker student, the first thing I did is – bought myself an expensive digital weighing scale. To achieve my goal, there could have been many KPIs that I could have chosen (e.g. – Body fat content, Waist to Hip ratio, Pedometer etc.) but I felt weighing everyday was like the easiest thing to do.

If you look at the graph, I have been fairly consistent. Ironically the first day I started measuring, I ended up gaining quite some weight (the peak at the beginning). On and off I indulged once in a while (which is indicated by all the peaks that you see in between). But if I take the trend, I was fairly consistent with my weight loss plan, till 2 weeks ago.

Last 2 weeks I have been not measuring and my weight loss has been turned into a weight gain. My trend indicates that if I continue at my current pace, I will be back on my path to become very fat. Well, I don’t know if I will be able to counter that, but if there is one thing that I learnt from the last 6 months is indeed – what gets measured really gets done!

So, whatever you wanna do in life, it is mandatory that you set a goal, and measure yourself against the goal everyday!