Fitness Log Example: How To Track Your Fitness Journey

You might be surprised to realize how much can be observed from just your standing posture-I go into A LOT of detail about it in my blog: What Does Your Posture Say About You?

Improvements in performance and stamina

Performance improvements are progress indicators that need to be tested at strategic times, with respect to the body.

This means that you shouldn’t be looking for strength PR’s every week. 

I’ll go more into the frequency later.

For now, here is a simple list of common performance improvements that I keep track of during my client’s fitness journey:

• Building of strength by notating increased weight lifted
• Improved recovery by monitoring heart rate and break times
• Increased stamina by recorded improvement in time spent under tension
• Decreased duration of muscle soreness post workout
• Enhanced flexibility and mobility by ability to access certain positions
• Developed stability and observed control over every part of the movement

Depending on the client, there can be more or less performance indicators that I track but on average I find these to be the most universal.

Increased energy and improved moods

If you’re on a balanced fitness program, the first improvement that you should notice is an increase in daily energy and better moods.

This happens for a few different reasons:

• • Exercise releases endorphins which make you happy. The right amount of exercise won’t overwork or fatigue you-it will simply make you feel happier.
  • A healthy fitness routine will help to condition your metabolism and permit you more energy. Having more energy is enough to improve your mood on its own!
  • Getting on a healthier diet will help you detox your body of food additives that are known to be addicting and cause depression.
• You feel proud of yourself for making a commitment to yourself and your betterment!

Now this is where the measurements become less tangible: you can’t literally measure your happiness or energy levels.

My recommendation is to do reflective journaling to keep track of this.

Reflective journaling is simply a journal entry in which you reflect on how you are feeling and what may have contributed to that.

A good example would be a journal entry that says,

“I’ve stuck to my goal of eating 3 cups of vegetables a day for the past 5 days and I’ve noticed that I feel lighter, less groggy after lunch and more patient with my coworkers.” 

You can then use this to reflect back and observe patterns in how you are affected by different health and fitness habits, affording you both opportunities to:

1. Use a past journal entry as motivation to return to a lost hbit
2. Customize your fitness journey to what you observe has worked best for you

As a coach, this is something I keep track of for my clients.

During every session I ask them:

• “How has your energy been this week? Have you been experiencing any fatigue, brain fog or lethargy?”
• “How have your moods been? Do you feel even and in control, or have you felt a little overwhelmed?”

For me this is relevant because fatigue and depression during a fitness program can be some of the first symptoms of:

• Overtraining
• Undereating
• Imbalanced Nutrition
• Inadequate Sleep Habits
• Thyroid Dysfunction

And more!

Changes to self-confidence, self-talk and self-efficacy

For many reasons, it is important to me that my clients have a fitness journey that is as beneficial to their mental health as it is their physical health.

The most significant ways in which your fitness journey can affect your mental health are detailed in this Fitness & Mental Health blog.  

Because of this, I also take note of how my clients seem to talk about themselves and their behaviors.

(And my clients know that I am also super quick to correct their negative self-talk…lol!) 

All of my sessions have a “No negative self-talk rule”,

and oftentimes, I give my clients homework of affirmations or journaling to help them improve their mindset about their body or their fitness journey.

A great example of this is a client I’ve had who had been struggling with controlling a tendency towards binge eating behavior…

She would do good eating healthy all week, but slip up a little on the weekend and have an enormous sense of shame as she told me about it afterwards.

Instead of reprimanding her for slipping up, I asked her to work on her sense of shame in allowing herself a fun night out with her girlfriends.

“If you’re going to go out to have fun, I don’t want you thinking about eating healthy-I want you to enjoy yourself and I want you to work on not being ashamed of that.” I told her.

For almost 6 months we worked on preparing her for her fun nights out every few weekends: we would have our little pep talks of “This is a night for fun, not for dieting-the point is to enjoy yourself.”

Gradually over those 6 months she not only started shaming herself less for her indulgences, but she also started indulging less-she just naturally started feeling less and less of a desire to overdo it.

The point at which she came to me and said,

“I had some wine and takeout with some girlfriends last night but it was no big deal-I made sure to drink plenty of water after.”

instead of…

“I did so awful last night: I had like 800 calories of this and that.”

was the day I put a big star in her book for goal achievement.

She’d had a mindset level up.