Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Tracking Exercise Progress

Exercise is a vital component to a healthy lifestyle. If you do not implement a regular exercise routine into your daily life, you will struggle to lose weight and will not be able to maintain it if you do lose it. Exercise needs to be a regular part of any healthy lifestyle. One way to help yourself maintain consistency is to keep track of how often you exercise. I have a TOPS Tracker that I use that keeps track of my weight loss and physical activity. Each time I exercise I jot down what day of the week it is and what duration and/or distance I completed. While that works alright for me, I really prefer to see my accomplishments on a larger scale. So what I did was find a calendar program that allows me to put in whatever data I choose. I made this calendar My Workout Journal.


Now I can view my progress in a monthly view and have an overall feel for how much exercise I am getting a week (this calendar has other view options as well).

My goal is 3 hours a week over 4-5 days. I usually end up with 2 hours and 45 minutes as my average. That is working really well for me and I am seeing results so I am pleased with that. I would eventually like to see more, but the realities of being a busy homeschooling housewife and mother makes it hard for me to find a consistent time each week that I can exercise. Therefore a journal is imperative to keep me accountable to myself and make sure I am making the time I need each week.

While this particular calendar program at Calendars.net is public, you have to give the URL for anyone else to be able to access it. There are several other calendar options you can choose from that are not public. My Google email account comes with one but I wanted something I was more willing to share publicly so I could be accountable to all of you as well as myself. There are also several sites online that let you keep track of various other weight loss data too. Choose whatever works best for you. The important thing is that you use something to make sure that you keep track of the amount of exercise you are getting.

If you notice I have offered access to view my calendar on the side bar of my blog. Look for the exercise image and click on it to see just how much exercise I have been getting in!

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