Comments on: Keeping Score

By: Rowan Simpson

Rowan Simpson — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:56:45 +0000

Using a weighted average (no pun intended, I’m sure) makes so much
sense.

I’ve used this in a number of other contexts where measurements
fluctuate – e.g. when tracking visits to a website over a week or
month – but it just hadn’t occurred to me to use it in this case.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:18:49 +0000

@Bill: you’re right – and as a 5-hour student pilot, learning the checklists for startup and takeoff, I should have thought of that myself!

@Rowan: I agree, daily weight fluctuations are the biggest problem in using weight as a measure.

The classic chick-on-a-diet book is Bridget Jones’ Diary; Bridget weighs herself every day, and a one-pound gain sends her into a panic. I must admit, I’ve been there myself.

The Hacker’s Diet (mentioned in my first post) directly addresses this problem by employing some mathematics: a simple weighted average, to smooth the daily/hourly fluctuations into a smooth curve – trending up or trending down.

I have an Excel graph of the trend and daily data points, and I’ve used it for seven years now (!). Every time I think I’ve got it nailed and stop using the spreadsheet, my weight trends up again :-).

For what it’s worth, I also track waist measurement daily – and for the whole seven years, during which I have been completely unfit, got fit and run a marathon, and got injured and relapsed into unfitness, waist measurement has always been pretty well correlated with my weight. So for me at least, they’re both good metrics for what I’m really interested in.

One more thing has just occurred to me: what are all those group-weight-loss organisations, but a way of sharing your metrics and competing to improve them?

~ Carolyn

By: Rowan Simpson

Rowan Simpson — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:01:46 +0000

@Carolyn Tracking weight is a tough one. In the past when I've tracked this for myself I've seen it fluctuate a lot and not necessarily correlated to things that I really care about. For example: I weighed myself at the gym a few times (at the same time of day, etc) and found the result moved as much as +/- 2kgs depending on how many times I filled my drink bottle while I was there Also, both times I've been training for a big event (see: 16km of hose, 5km of truth) I've seen my weight increase despite being in the best shape of my life at the time Another book I've recently read suggested using waist measurement as a better indicator. See: Think Before You Swallow by Noel O'Hare My brother recommends using the Look in the mirror test, which is also probably a more accurate (albeit subjective) measure. Although there are flaws with that approach too. And I know what you mean about keeping this sort of thing to yourself. Although, as long as you can get over the initial shock, being a bit public with this sort of data is probably a very effective way to ensure you stay disciplined! Perhaps something you'd just share with a few people? Still not sure I'd be brave enough to do that though. :-)

By: Doug Wright

Doug Wright — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:24:37 +0000

Rowan,
In case you don’t remember me, I’m one of Phil Cockfield’s friends in SoCal – we met at ETech last year. I read “Better” last year and absolutely loved it. Great synopsis and I agree about checklists. My daughter has cystic fibrosis and I found his chapter investigating the amazing differences between average and excellent doctors and clinics. It turns out that most of us, by definition, are in the middle of the bell curve (“average” to use the word in it’s non-mathematical sense). The best doctors can be 10 or 20 times more effective than the average ones and it can be because of the disciplined application of things as seemingly mundane as checklists. This can apply to many disciplines in life.

Thanks for the great post!

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:47:05 +0000

Obviously, where safety of life is a major concern – Aviation, checklists have exisited for as long as there have been aircraft to fly. Properly used, they make flying a whole lot safer. They are there for 50-hour pilots and for 20,000-hour pilots. And they work.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:53:21 +0000

This goes back to Peter Drucker too: “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Although the addition of sharing your score and then competing with your peers is going to add a whole new level of motivation!

Some things I’ve been measuring in order to manage them:

1) my CO2 output (see my blog)

2) my weight, every day – inspired by the Hacker’s Diet (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html)

But while I do share my CO2 output, I don’t think I’ll be sharing my weight any time soon…

~ Carolyn