Free Muscle Building & Health

One of the best tools you can have to help you stay on track with your training and weight program is to take time out to keep up a fitness or training journal. By setting goals in the journal you'll be able to write different things down that can help you keep track of what your progress is. Even if this means keeping track of weight gain there might be along the way as well as weight loss or other things that have changed along the way.

As silly as this might seem, but in order for you to want to record all of your efforts or lack of efforts in a journal you need to make sure that it is something you enjoy writing in. Find a journal that is attractive to you like a leather bound journal, or a journal that has some design on it that is pleasing to you. You should also make sure that the pens you use are pens that feel good in your hand and that you enjoy writing with. Believe it or not, this will keep you interested in keeping the journal up.

Make sure to document everything in the moment. Don't wait till the next day. It doesn't matter what you start writing in it, just write and make sure that you include the bad with the good or even something that might be indifferent. It doesn't matter, just write it down. Don't think about writing down that bowl of chocolate ice cream you had for lunch, just write it down. Stop feeling guilty, the more guilty you feel about something the more likely you'll repeat it because it won't be written down for you to be reminded to change something that should be changed.

Things that you should include in your journal are:

1. Diet – Write the time you ate as well as what you ate at each meal and each snack time.
2. Exercise – No matter what the extent of the exercise write it down. If it was just a 5 minute walk or a few sit ups or a walk in the mall shopping. Write it down.
3. Your Feelings – Write down how it made you feel. Were you tired after, were you filled with energy. Were you hungry all day long or were you stressed all day? Keep track of all your feelings.

When the end of the week comes around you can take your journal and review the entire week. This will start to open your eyes up to what kinds of habits you are exhibiting. For instance are you making it a habit to just eat once a day. Are you not getting enough exercise? Are you showing too much signs of stress? All of these things can help you figure out what you need to change in order to make your fitness program be more successful.

Understand that you need to make sure that within your fitness program or training program that you eat about every 4 hours and you should eat something, obviously good for you, about 4 to 5 times each day. Make sure that you include carbs and proteins in this food as well as some fat. This is vitally important if you are on a heavy workout routine.