keep a food and exercise journal in 2006

When I used my food/exercise journal before, I would write down (at the end of the day) what I ate and what type of exercise I did for that day. I’d have to say that the journal has helped me to exercise daily for several months now. I stopped using the journal for a while until yesterday, but I’m using it differently now. I’m now planning my days ahead of time by writing what I’ll eat and what exercises I’ll do. At the end of the day, I’ll look in my journal again and check off if I accomplished every thing for that day. I don’t have a problem with exercising anymore…it’s pretty much an every day thing for me. I’m still working on eating healthier though and I hope this will help me do that…

I haven’t been writing in my food/exercise journal every day for a couple of weeks. I’ve just been scribbling things into it, but that’s not the way I want to use it. I need to get focused on exercise and eating healthier again. There are days when I have a lot of motivation and then there are days when I don’t have any motivation at all. What are some things that you do to get really motivated (without having that motivation fade away)?

I have not been doing very well at this, mostly because I felt guilty that I was eating so poorly and not working out. I think I’ve gotten the urge to eat so much bad stuff out of my system, and now that I am going to rejoin my health club, I want to pick this back up this weekend when I get home. I’d start now, but it’s sitting on my kitchen table.

I haven’t missed a day of journaling since I started on January 1. Keeping a food and exercise journal helps me to see what types of foods I’m eating and how many days out of the week I’ve exercised. It took me a while to find a comfortable exercise routine (I’m still thinking of some changes) and a “diet” (not exactly a diet diet, but what foods I should eat) I could work with. Everything related to this thing for me is taking a lot of patience…

I think it’s possible to make a lifestyle change without writing everything down. I think that doing this discourages a lot of people from making that lifestyle change because it is such a cumbersome thing to do…

B – 2 boiled eggs, v8
S – 15 cashews
L – chicken with spinach
S – latte, asparagus spears
D – roast beef, turnips, onions, salad
S – yogurt with a few walnut chips

I’ve been using FitDay.com off and on for several months. Now I need to use it more regularly, because I think it will really help me.
Here’s their description: “Over 1.3 Million Members!
Sign-up for your free web account and join the growing number of FitDay members who are tracking their foods, exercises, weight loss, and goals online. FitDay provides you with the feedback and analysis you need to stay on track towards your diet and fitness goals.” www.fitday.com

I placed one (neat one that was desogned to track food and exercise) in my Amazon.com shopping cart on Dec. 30, but when I checked yesterday, the price had gone up. Today I stopped sulking about it and ordered it. It should arrive by Thursday. I have an unlined plain journal that used for awhile in Baghdad last season that should tide me over until then.

I dug up my old food and exercise journal during the last week of December. I tried using it during that week because I wanted to carry on using it into the new year. I didn’t do so great during that week though and I think I just have about 2 entries for that week.

I started using it again today though and I feel more motivated to use it more than ever now. I really hope that this motivation doesn’t just last a couple of weeks. I just feel really great right now. I’m also glad to see that more people have added this to their things. Makes me really know that I’m not alone in trying to do this. Good Luck!!!

I’m hoping that by doing this, it will help me accomplish my other goals of eating healthier and exercising more. I’ve done something like this before and it really helped to keep me on track, but I didn’t really keep up with it. I’m going to try and keep one throughout 2006.