Keeping Health & Fitness Journals For Weight Loss Success

Seeing how you improve every day, every week, every month, is by far the biggest motivator when it comes to losing weight and staying committed to your fitness goals. But not only is this knowledge and info that you will record in your journals a powerful motivator but also a MUST to make sure you keep moving in the right direction as far as getting results.

Trying to lose weight without keeping track of your progress is like someone lost in the woods trying to find their way out without a compass. The chances are good that he/she will just become more lost and walk in circles without making any real progress.

So what are the most important things you need to keep track of in your journals? Well, I always give my clients this 4 point checklist. The first two points covers what I cal Daily journals. These are journals and info you want to record every single day. Then points 3 and 4 are journals you need to keep from info you want to record every 3 to 4 weeks. Within these 4 points you will find everything you need to know on how to keep a health and fitness journal for success.

1) Keep a workout journal that records every aspect of every workout you do. This includes the exercises chosen, their order, the amount of weight used, the reps, sets and rest periods! Be sure to include important info like how you personally felt about the training e.g. were you feeling strong and motivated? Could you have done more? Was it too heavy for you to keep proper form or was it too easy? And so forth. Keep separate sections for your cardio and for your weight training workouts and also make sure you write down how many calories you burned with each workout (if you have access to this information via your heart rate monitor for example, or as displayed on the cardio equipment monitors).

2) Keep track of your eating habits with a food journal. Now I know we all have busy lives and it can be difficult writing down everything you eat all day long. But try and keep an eating journal in your car or office and every time you see it write down everything you have eaten since your last entry. Remember, write everything down, and don't cheat. Include foods, drinks (water, coffee's, tea's, water, sodas) and little bits of info such as the chewing of gum or using sweeteners or sauces and dressings on food. This will clearly show you if you are sticking to your eating plan, how often and when you get hungry or have cravings and when you should avoid certain types of food (salt, sugar, wheat, dairy) etc. This blueprint of your success and shortcomings gives you powerful information that you can use to make your eating plan more effective.

3) Have your body composition measured. Now for those of you that do not know what this word body composition means, well it is just a measure of all the components that make up your body as you see it in front of you right now. This kind of test will include information such as your weight, height, circumference measurements, your body fat and muscle mass percentage and so forth. Have this kind of test taken every 4 weeks. To make sure you are moving in the right direction between tests, you can weigh yourself on the scale every 3 to 4 days. A body composition is by far the most important test taken and must be performed every few weeks as it will show you your progress and provide you with much motivation needed to continue your transformation.

4) Fitness testing. Now a fitness test will show you just how much stronger and fitter you are becoming. You will also see this information indicated in your daily workout journal (By the way; always make sure to improve on your previous workouts each and every time you train. In this way you can make sure you push yourself to become stronger and better each time round.) This could be done professionally or you could just take a home fitness test. A home fitness test would include something like performing as many push-ups or sit-ups in 1 minute. The main thing is to take the same test every time so that you can see how you improve week by week. There is no point in testing your maximum number of pushups in 1 minute this week and then doing as many sit-ups in 1 minute the following week as you won't have any results to compare it to.

5) Now the 5th point is one I did not mentioned before. The reason for this is that it's not really a journal as such but more some things you could be doing to keep track of how well you are progress is going. I call these, my personal tests. This can be anything from getting into that tight pair of jeans in the back of your closet from a few years ago when you were in great shape or meeting up with an old friend you haven't seen in ages and noticing their reaction to how well you look now. Basically anything that you can think of that can be used as a yardstick to show progress. Remember it must be measurable otherwise it wont really work that well.

If you stick to this checklists and start keeping a journal you are quickly going to find out how powerful this tool can be, not just for motivation but also to make sure you are on the right track. It still amazes me at times when I go to the gym and I see people using the same amount of weight on the same exercises they did 4 months ago and then they wonder why they don't achieve results.

With a journal you will be able to see if you are improving, if you are getting stronger, weaker, fitter, or leaner. It takes the guess work out of losing weight and sculpting that perfect body you wanted and makes it an exact science, one you are in control of.

Remember though, that these journals will also show you if you're not making progress, but don't let that discourage you in any way. You should see this as a sign that you need to change something to get better results. So don't become de-motivated if you don't see the results you wanted, it is just a sign that what you are doing right now, might not be the right thing for you and that you might want to get a new workout program or that you need to increase your intensity a little or change your diet. Your journal holds you accountable for your actions. Just think of it in this way, what is the use of going to the gym and working out hard every day if you don't get any results? By keeping a journal you will be able to pick up on this very quickly and be able to change what you are doing incorrectly so that you don't spend 6 months doing that same wrong thing over and over again.

Now if you don't have a journal already, go and get one or simply create one yourself. It doesn't have to be posh or expensive. I use a normal scrap book and just write down each exercise I do with all the relevant information (as mentioned above) next to it. As far as my eating diary is concerned, I outline a basic plan for the day and then indicate how well I stuck to it throughout with my actual plan.

The sooner you start using these journals, the sooner you will see that sexy new body you want. Don't waste another minute of your time, start your daily and weekly journals now and start to see results!

By Fitnessemag.com