Week 3: Exercise Journal

Week 3: Exercise Journal and Healthy Habits (2 part)

Week 3 is another 2 part challenge A and B. Remember the article I posted about The 7 Healthy Habits of Highly Fit People? Hopefully you read it and took it to heart. If so, this challenge will be a piece of cake. This week we are going to incorporate two of them into our daily routines {because we are working on two of them, we are setting a healthy goal: the 6th habit, so essentially we are working on three...:)}. This challenge goes from May 17th to May 23rd. You will report whether or not you completed the challenge with your weigh in on May 24th.

A. It's simple: Park far away.

It's only for 7 days: you can do this for 7 days! You may find you really like it and keep it going after that. Any excuse to get some physical activity is what we are going for.

Healthy Habit #2: They Move

People who seem to be perpetually in good shape not only eat frequently, but they move a lot. This seems elementary, but in a sedentary society, we are moving less than ever before.

Highly fit people don’t shy away from physical activity in their daily lives, whether that is walking when they could have drove or taking the stairs when the elevator would have been more convenient. If we walked more, and drove less, we wouldn’t have to spend as much time on the treadmill at the gym. Yet our daily lives are often arranged in such a way to discourage physical activity.

Highly fit people consciously go out of their way to find opportunities to move. Whether that is parking a greater distance away from the shopping mall, taking the stairs at work, or even picking up their pace when walking from meeting-to-meeting, you’ll always notice that fit people seem to be on the move.

They also find ways to get exercise that doesn’t always require spending time at the gym. Whether that’s recreational sports, walking the dog, swimming, running, yoga, Pilate's or even stretching at their desks, they understand that staying in-shape is a lifestyle, not just a “kick” you go on.

B. Exercise Journal. Whether it be your weights and repetitions, or speed walking from the back of the parking lot into the grocery store, how much exercise are you getting? How are you going to improve and move more if you don't know? Write it down! If you are sunbathing and watching your kids swim...doesn't count. You jump in and swim laps with them, you can log it! Make a choice to move more and become more active. You should see progress from one week to the next, whether you run further, lift more, find a goal and work towards it. Exactly WHAT do you record? That is up to you, depending on your exercise goals, make it your own. If you goal is to get moving and become more active, write down all of your physical activities. If you're goals are more specific, that's OK. {For example: the past few months, I've been working on improving my speed. My journal is going to have the days I ran and how fast my mile was. Maybe you are trying to increase the weights on your chest press, if so yours would be the date with the amount of weights and repetitions.}

Healthy Habit # 7: They Record Their Progress

Healthy, highly-fit people keep track of their exercise so they can determine whether they are actually making progress toward their goal. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Most highly-fit people keep an exercise log of some sort or another. It may simply be a notebook where they write down each exercise, the weight and completed reps. Or it may be more formal, for example a store-bought exercise and fitness log or a sheet provided by their gym. There are even programs available for cell phones or PDAs that can help track progress.

One of the first pieces of advice I give someone who feels like they aren’t making progress with their workout routine or diet is to start an exercise and food log. Often, people aren’t working as hard as they think at the gym or they’re eating more calories than they originally estimated. By keeping track of the details of your diet and workout regimen, you can have better visibility into potential stumbling-points and improve them.

Fitness-conscious people understand this, since meeting their goals means understanding that progress from the little improvements you make each workout. Unless you are tracking those improvements, you’ll find yourself stalled and frustrated.