Keeping a journal of your exercise and eating charts your performance and fitness progress. You can buy a spiffy new spiral notebook and begin making lists, but a computer is a better choice. A spreadsheet adds columns of numbers accurately and automatically. It prompts you to enter the same item in the same way, then finds and sorts for an instant status picture. Determine a value once and it's easy to locate another time. You may find journaling so engaging that you save older records for fun.
General
Step 1
Set up a new spreadsheet. Save it as "Year.ExerciseFood.Initials." This will automatically put it in order at your computer's desktop level. You can sort so that newest file names appear first.
Example: 2000.ExerciseFood.JW is Joni White's exercise and eating journal for the year 2000.
Step 2
Label Tab 1 "Exercise" and Tab 2 "Food." In Microsoft Excel, spreadsheet tabs appear by default at the bottom of a new workbook and are initially labeled Sheet1, Sheet2, and so on. Double-click on the tab to rename it.
Step 3
Put the year in the upper leftmost cell of each spreadsheet.
Step 4
Sum the hours of exercise under the bottom row of the "Output" column in the "Exercise" spreadsheet and the "Calories" column in the "Food" spreadsheet by inserting this formula in one cell:
=SUM(First data cell in that column:last data cell in that column)
For example: =SUM(G3:G14)
Exercise
Step 1
Add column labels to the Exercise spreadsheet for date, activity, time (minutes), distance, discipline, equivalence factor (minutes) and output (miles run).
Step 2
Decide which disciplines you wish to record. Examples are endurance, cardio work, strength training, racing, flexibility and speed work.
Step 3
Find exercise equivalence factors for your common activities and make note of the websites you prefer, so you can look values up when you try something new. See Resources for a selection of applicable websites.
Step 4
Express the equivalence for each sport in terms of time exercised. For example, swimming laps for an hour is about the same as running for half an hour, according to the Mayo Clinic in "Exercise for Weight Loss: Calories Burned in One Hour," December 2009. The equivalence factor is 0.5.
Step 5
Assume that column C is "time (minutes)," column D is "distance" and Column F is "equivalence factor." Insert into the "output (miles run)" column this formula:
=IF(ISBLANK($D16),$C16*$F16/60,$D16*$F16)
Copy and paste the same formula down that column.
Food
Step 1
Label columns on the Food spreadsheet "date," "meal," "item," "amount," "nutrient category" and "calories."
Step 2
Look up calorie count for each food as you enter data. The USDA National Nutrient Database is excellent, as is the USDA Calorie Counter.
Step 3
Enter data regularly to build a personal exercise and eating profile.
Tips and Warnings
- Build the habit of completing the spreadsheet at the same time each day. If you let much time elapse, you forget details. Food ingested is easier to remember when you group it in meals. It makes sense occasionally to take a note, such as "Coffeeshop in PM."
Things You'll Need
- Computer
- Spreadsheet software
Member Comments
serg8000 July 14
cool article...never found a good spreadsheet to track calories and exercise so I ended up developing one that eventually evolved into a huge macro excel project...