One common piece of advice when embarking on any fitness or weight goal is to track your progress. Yet, recording your data takes time and requires you to remember to do it consistently to be effective. However, if you can make it part of your routine, you’ll have a powerful tool to help you achieve your goals.
Why Bother?
Why do you even have to track your workouts or weight if you already exercise and watch what you eat? You may think you have it well in hand. Unfortunately, you can’t remember all your experiences from your workouts or every meal you’ve eaten. Can you list everything you’ve eaten and your workout sessions in the past week? If you can, great job! Now, go back another week, then another week.
Tracking your workouts and weight will help you achieve your fitness goals. It lets you know where you were and where you are now, which is essential for making better decisions based on your actions and efforts. You can find patterns to help you adjust your behavior and workouts to keep you moving toward your goals instead of away. It’s hard to know what’s working and not working unless you track and monitor yourself.
What Should You Track?
Perhaps you don’t track your weight or fitness routine because you’re unsure what to track. You may have a vague idea, such as tracking what you eat for your weight and what exercises you did for your workouts. On the other hand, you may not know precisely what you should track because you’re unsure how to use the data once you have it.
Only track what you need. For example, tracking what you’re eating and drinking every day and your weight once a week is enough for you to make well-informed decisions about your diet. It isn’t necessary to count calories. However, if it helps you make better decisions, track your caloric intake. Your workouts are no different. Start with the basics, such as what exercise you did, for how long, and how you felt. As you fine-tune your goals, you can track more data as needed.
When Should You Track Your Data?
Tracking your fitness and weight is not hard at all. What’s challenging is building the discipline to record your meals and workouts. It can be difficult to remember when preparing or cleaning up after a meal or finishing a workout at the gym or in an unfamiliar place. However, it’s not hard to do if you include it in your current routine.
Tracking Your Weight
The best time is before eating or drinking, such as when you sit down for a meal, grab a snack, or drink a beverage. Why is this the best time? Because managing your weight also involves making better choices. When you write things down, they become recorded, providing a sense of accountability. Secondly, it lets you contemplate if you’re making good choices. You have a moment to think about what you’re about to consume and decide if it’s helping you achieve your goal. As a result, you may substitute a cookie for an apple, eat smaller portions for your meals, or skip dessert. Awareness can be powerful enough to help you manage your weight without counting calories.
Weighing yourself once a week is enough to track your progress toward your weight goal. To give the most accurate picture of your current weight, it would be best to weigh yourself around the same time each week. You can certainly weigh yourself more often, but no more than once a day. However, weighing yourself daily can cause unnecessary frustration as your body will naturally fluctuate.
Smart scales can make tracking your weight easy, as they can automatically track it over time. However, they can record a lot of data. Instead of focusing on all the data, focus on your overall weight. It does not mean you’ve failed if your weight doesn’t seem to move or only moved a little from the previous week. Instead of being frustrated, look at your weight over weeks or months. If your weight isn’t moving, look at your food journal and adjust your diet.
Tracking Your Fitness
The best time to track your fitness is right after a workout. This is the best time to add details about your workout and how you feel physically and mentally. In addition to recording what exercise you did and for how long, you should note any aches, pains, lingering soreness, and how you feel overall.
Fitness trackers and apps can make recording your workouts easy. However, they can also record a lot of data. Like your weight, focus only on the data related to your goals. The trends over weeks and months are your actual progress. One unfavorable data point from an off day does not mean you’re failing. Instead of being frustrated, look at the data over time, which will likely show a different perspective.
The Takeaway
It’s hard to know what’s working or not working unless you track your progress. Tracking your weight and workouts is vital for reaching your fitness goals. However, tracking yourself will not be effective unless you consistently do it. Tracking your diet is the most effective before you eat or drink. Weighing yourself once a week is enough to monitor your weight. Recording your workouts shortly after completing them will ensure the most accurate information. It’s helpful to know where you came from and where you are today, which can help you make well-informed decisions regarding your overall health.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
