Research has demonstrated time and time again that keeping your goals front and center is the best way to make sure that you keep up with working towards those goals day in and day out. This is why maintaining a weight loss journal is considered one of the most effective habits that you can pick up as you are trying to lose weight. A weight loss journal does more than simply create a log of what you’ve eaten and how often you’ve worked out—as helpful as that is in tracking your progress and for check-ins with your weight loss doctor. A weight loss journal provides a resource for you to create daily check-ins for yourself, thereby helping you to hold yourself more accountable as you progress through your weight loss program.

There are plenty of ways to keep a weight loss journal. Here are a few creative solutions:

1. The phone app. There are plenty of phone apps out there on the market that are designed to basically be a digital weight loss journal. They ask you to log everything that you eat, how often you exercise, and anything else that you consume (like coffee or any sugary beverage). This way you are not surprised by any of the figures in front of you.
2. The planner. There are plenty of pre-designed weight loss journals that are created with convenience in mind, helping you to track what you’ve eaten and what exercise goals you are able to keep up with right next to your work to-do list and your weekly grocery list.
3. The bullet journal. This is a rising trend in journaling that goes fully minimalist. The pages are a blank slate and you decide what you are going to track and in what fashion. You can change up the way your spreads look every week so that you don’t get bored. This also makes it easy to switch up your weekly goals.

Getting on top of your weight loss goals by staying aware of how the choices you make every day factor together can really help you progress through your weight loss program, especially after weight loss surgery. For more guidance on how to make the best daily choices to see the greatest weight loss success, consult your weight loss surgeon.