Saturday, May 2, 2015

Using Social Media for Accountability and Encouragement

For those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook, you will have noticed that I use social media extensively to track my health progress.  I post my weekly weight loss (or gain), when I'm excited (or dismayed) about my exercises, foods that I enjoy that are healthy, and even some of my vital stats (for example blood sugar) from doctor's visits.

Why do I do this?  Two reasons; accountability and encouragement.  First, by posting regularly and seeing that other people are following my journey, it makes me more accountable.  It's very easy to lie to yourself, but very difficult to lie to hundreds of your friends.  Second, hearing positive feedback from my friends gives me a lot of encouragement.  I'm always stunned to see the number of friends that "like" my weekly updates and leave great comments.  My friends also share their own experiences, which makes me feel that I'm not alone in my journey to better health.  To my friends out there who have given me some great feedback in the past, I thank you!

This blog is also another example of social media that I use.  I've been happy to see that it has helped.  Since I started the blog in April of 2014, I have lost more than 20 lbs.  I took a look at my post history and I saw that I mostly posted from April 2014 to June 2014 and then again recently for the past two months.  It's no accident that my greatest losses were during the same time that I was posting to the blog (as you can see below).  Accountability and encouragement works!


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