Exercise Diary Why Keep One

Exercise Diary Why Should You Keep One

To begin with, keeping an exercise diary / workout log can have many benefits for people who want to lose weight or achieve a fitness goal. Read on to learn about benefits of using an exercise diary as well as some extra tips to help you use one in order to help you meet your weight loss and / or fitness goals..

Benefits Of Keeping An Exercise Diary

• It creates accountability. Something about keeping a list helps many people stick to a goal. By seeing a diary of what you’ve done and having a list of what you plan to do, you can see your progress and you have continuous reminders of what your goals are. There are also options where you can sign up with friends to online diaries that can be shared. This can be helpful if working out with an accountability buddy.

• You can track your progress. An exercise diary can help you determine how many calories you’re burning and can help you track your goals. Some people track weight and measurements so they can track kg or lbs lost as well as track inches lost. Seeing progress will help you stay on track to reach your goals.

• It’s smart to track days where you’ll do rest, cardio exercises, cardio and strength training, etc. It’s wise to take a rest day between strength training days but some people forget what they did on their last workout day when they’ve had a day off. Diaries help you keep track of what you’ve done and what you’re planning on doing. You can also track number of reps or weight lifted, too, and see how you’re progressing.

• An exercise diary helps you mix things up. By tracking exercises, you can avoid plateauing by switching things up often enough.

• Some fitness diaries can even recommend exercise regimens to you as well, keeping things interesting and keeping you engaged through continuous new exercise suggestions.

Therefore, there are a number of reasons why people track their exercise with a diary. How do you get started?

You can simply keep a log with an exercise diary template that you find online (or create yourself), you can sign up for a website that offers free or paid memberships, and you can find downloadable smartphone applications that let you track exercise via a diary you can access on the go.

Especially relevant, some exercise diary software and applications also incorporate food diaries as well. These can help you track nutrients, track your ratio of carbs / protein / fat and they can help you see if your combination of food taken in and calories burned off puts you in an ideal range for your body type and weight loss goals.