I have always been an advocate of journaling. Journaling does so many things for you in the way of making progress: it makes you accountable, allows you to see your progress and is a valuable resource for figuring out what changes need to be made with regard to your goal.
I myself prefer a more personal journal where I have always combined my training and diet log with my daily “journaling”, writing whatever is on my mind that day, as well as my to do’s, goals, etc. For years I have used a notebook of some sort, the type of notebook has changed over the years but the concept the same. I started in college with a calendar type notebook, then changed to a planner notebook when I started competing. I enjoy looking back at my old journals as a sort of a window into my past.
This year I have to admit, I am at a loss as to how to continue on with my journaling and I’ll tell you why…technology. Technology has brought us so many amazing ways to organize our to do’s, our goals, our writing, and yes, our diet and training tracking. There have been web sites out there for years that will keep track of your diet and training, to me they are not one bit convenient. I need to sit at my computer, go to the site and then remember all that I ate/ did that day. If I change my mind and decide to have another meal, or decide that I do want to go for a run tonight after all, now I have to log back in to record it? Sure.
There are so many fun and extensive phone apps out there to record your diet and training that it’s hard to not use them, and who doesn’t have their phone with them most of the day? One of my clients who is on a weight loss program was suggested an app called Lose It! to track her diet so I uploaded it to see how great it really was. I have to say I love and have been using it for a few months now. It has a great data base of food, including many brand name and restaurant foods as well as the ability to put in your own recipes where it will break it down into serving data. It also has an extensive list of exercises, also with the ability to add your own. You can put in your current weight, a goal weight and the rate at which you would like to gain or lose that weight. It shows you stats for your day, week and your past weeks as well as back that data up on the web site(though it does not appear to be doing this for me). You are also able to share your progress with real friends or online friends, this is not something I have yet tested. This is an iPhone app, there is an Android app called Diet and Food Tracker that my daughter has used with success as well. I uploaded another app called DailyBurn that I haven’t gotten around to trying yet, but I’ll keep you posted!
I have also been using an app called iMapMyRun which uses your phone’s GPS to track your outdoor workout, obviously this won’t work if you’re doing cardio on a machine. One thing I wasn’t too sure about was the fact that I have to wear my arm band when I do my cardio, something I have never done on outdoor sessions because I want to be aware of my surroundings. I got over this quickly and now I’m being a bit safer because I have a form of communication with me, and my camera! You can set this app to give you progress reports so you know whether you’re on pace or not and it maps your route, at the end it will give you stats: start and end time, duration, distance and pace. You can view your route, see your elevation, share your workout and/or challenge someone else to do the workout as well as Tweet and share on Facebook. This again is an iPhone app there is a android app called Cardio Trainer that my daughter has also tried and she loves it.
There are many apps out there and I’d love to hear of those others have tried and love, please share!
What this brings me back to is my loss for how to continue on with my journaling, so now I have several fun phone apps to do a multitude of things that I once did in one journal that I could fill up, store in the closet and use to go down memory lane here and there. Hence my dilemma…I no longer have my notebook journal full of doodles, funny notes and coffee stains, but I am still tracking my progress. So my point is, keeping track of your workouts and diet is a very important part of reaching your goals, find a way to do it and make it work. Though technology has brought us some fun, easy ways to track our progress, I still think the best way is to have a journal and start writing, speaking of that…I have a great On Track Training Journal available for you to start the process, or should I say progress!
