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Hi, it’s Allison here.
Today I want to touch base with you before you do your first Weekly Check In in the app. It’s a powerful tool - and the more consistently you use it, the more helpful it will be. It’s designed for you to use once a week to check in on your progress toward your goals; to see the big picture of your wellness journey; and to become more aware of how your patterns around eating, activity, sleep, and mindset impact each other. Finally, it guides you to set action-focused goals based on what’s happening in your life and what you’ve been learning about yourself.
We know that getting healthier and losing weight doesn’t happen by accident - it takes intention. So your weekly check-in is a moment to reflect on the week behind you and plan for the week ahead. It’s a chance to get valuable information and feedback. And it guides you to connect the dots between what you have been doing and the results that you’re seeing. All of this together helps you stay on track!
Here’s the drill. When you begin your weekly check-in, you’ll start by tracking your weight. Of course, you’ll need to hop on the scale first, which we recommend doing once a week on the same day. Remember this: what the scale says is just one piece of data - lots of factors can impact your weight on any given day which is why it’s important to focus on trends over time and the bigger picture. After you enter your weight, you’ll make note of how you felt this week. Before you answer, really take a minute to expand beyond how you’re feeling in the moment and think about the whole week. This will help you start to recognize patterns between how you feel and the data you’ll see shortly about what you’ve been doing.
Next up, we’ll ask you to jot down something - anything! - that went well this week. Why, you ask? Well, here’s the deal: we humans tend to be mostly tuned in to what struggles we’re having, what’s not going our way, or what we want to change. And while there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make improvements, it’s easy to get stuck when we’re mostly focused on our challenges. On the flip side, noticing what is going well or even just recognizing something that simply “worked” can build our confidence and create some momentum that we can build from. And isn’t that what we all want—to do more of the things that are working? And here’s the great part - the more we intentionally practice noticing the good stuff, the more we’ll start thinking through that lens automatically. Our brains are amazing like that. When we repeat something over and over - whether it’s a specific action or a new way of thinking, new neural pathways in our brain start to form - making it easier to keep it up in the future. What’s my point, you ask? Pay attention to the good stuff, take credit for it, and write it down already. And keep it up every week.
Ok, now it’s time to dig into the numbers to see your progress. We take the data from everything you’ve tracked and show you how much you’ve accomplished: How much sleep you got, your progress with your weight loss, how many days you were in the Healthy Eating Zone, and how many 5-Minute Coaching sessions or Headspace meditations you did that week. Food, your mindset, sleep, activity—they all affect your weight loss and wellness, and your Progress Report brings it all together for you. Over time, you might start to notice how shifts in one area seem to connect to shifts in others. Your progress report is a great tool to help you see the big picture and to notice small changes that might have otherwise slipped under the radar.
Finally, you’ll make an action plan. What’s the week ahead like for you? What needle do you want to move? And based on that, what do you want to focus on? You’ll finish your weekly check-in by setting a simple, truly doable goal that you can take action on this week. We’ll give you some suggestions based on what you’ve told us and the types of goals we know are effective - or you can type in your own. The key is to make it action-oriented. And any time you open the WW app until your next Weekly Check-in, you’ll see your goal on your homescreen, to help you keep it top of mind throughout the week.
One more thing. We know that stepping on the scale and getting other types of feedback on your progress can sometimes feel fantastic and other times feel daunting. The journey has ups and downs - that’s normal. As I’ve mentioned, it’s no accident that we’ve designed with Weekly Check-in to help you recognize general trends and to see the big picture rather than focusing on any one number. If it helps to get a reminder of how to do this every so often, check out the 5-minute Coaching audio called “Strengthen your mind and body” in the WW app before your future Weekly Check-ins. It’s a great pep talk to help you take perspective, shift your mindset about what success means, and to keep moving forward.