Documenting specific goals and plans leaves little room for excuses. Successful goal achievement is realized by consistent logging of planned steps and course of action. Each food and activity goal must be realistic and have measurable objectives. For example, saying you want to lose weight is not a specific goal. Instead, saying that you want to lose 10 pounds in 3 months is appropriately specific. Moreover, documenting specific objectives to achieve that goal, such as commiting to exercising 3 times per week for 30 minutes, provides measurable documentation that can be reviewed to verify whether or not the commitment was upheld. However, it should be noted that food and activity logs are beneficial for more than mere goal attainment, they are instrumental in lifestyle and/or behavior changes.
Significance
Food and activity logs are essential for self-monitoring. Self-monitoring allows for specific documentation of all physical activities and dieting behaviors. Self-monitoring through record keeping can assist you in reviewing your steps throughout the process and identifying possible missteps, if goal not realized, or points of interest that may have contributed to goal achievement. For example, if progress was made, but not the intended goal, reviewing documented data could help with maybe eliminating additional food(s) to reduce calories, or increasing cardio activity to more days per week.
Features
Journals for both food and activity levels should include the day/date/time of eating and activity. The information should be distinguishable for whether you are documenting food eaten or physical activity performed. For instance, a good food/activity log will include what time you ate, what you had to eat, how long it took to eat, where you ate and how you were feeling during this time. For physical activity, there should be an area to document what type of formal exercise you engaged in. Recording the aforementioned logistics while exercising is important here as well.
Recording how you feel while eating or exercising - positive, negative or neutral - can help in identifying potential stimuli or triggers that may serve as obstacles in making smart food choices or engaging in physical activity. If you do not exercise at a designated time you were planning to, you should be able to journal what was going on at the time. Is it something tangible such as having to work late that causes you to miss a workout, or is there an emotion or feeling that is the obstacle?
Time Frame
Ideally, food and activity journaling can become a way of life. However, it is important to continue to document as much as possible at least through the attainment of the desired goals. Conventional beliefs suggest that anything done consistently for 21 days becomes habit forming. Your objective is to make food and activity recording second nature.
Types
There are a couple of different ways to record your information. Obviously, there is the tried and true manual journal where you write out page by page all the pertinent information. This method is similar to having a diary. This method is good because you have the opportunity to fully express in detail your emotional situation at any given point of the day.
There is also the option of utilizing the internet to keep track of your progress. There are several free websites (including Resource 1) that afford you the opportunity to log on and input all of your information there as well. The advantage to using an online source is that they perform calculations for you regarding your caloric intake broken down by fats, carbohydrates and proteins. They allow you to enter your current information - weight, age, fitness level, etc. - and then provide you with recommendations for how many calories per day you need for weight maintenance, weight loss or weight gain. They also keep track of your fitness activity as well and can indicate how many calories you have burned based on your personal information. However, this method does tend to be more time consuming than that of writing in your journal.
Benefits
Again, there are several benefits when incorporating food and activity logs into your daily routine. Once you have determined your goals and objectives, these logs can help identify behaviors that jeopardize the success of your endeavors. They help highlight any obstacles, self-created or otherwise, that dissuade you from adopting a healthier lifestyle. Finally, they are essential for monitoring progress. It is difficult to know how you have improved if, at first, you do not know where you started.
References
- "IDEA Today," Taking small steps...to big changes, C. Vega; 2:20-22, 1991.
- "Essentials of Personal Training," National Strength and Conditoning Association; 2004.
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