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Daily Tip: Track Progress Daily

If you are not doing so already, start tracking what you eat on a daily basis. When you begin to track your progress in a journal or other tool on a daily basis you make a written commitment to yourself to alter your habits and make healthy changes in your lifestyle.

Study after study has found that people who track their daily habits are more successful in moving forward and achieving their goals.

Below are just a few of the benefits of keeping a health journal to track your progress.

Accountability: Recording what you eat or what activities you do every day, provides you with a daily reality check. For many people, the knowledge that they’ll have to record their results provides that extra motivation to stay on track.

Removing Roadblocks: If you are vigilant in using the journal, you will see patterns of behavior emerge, and you will be able to identify patterns that are holding you back. The more “health” data you have, the better you’ll be able to adjust your patterns and fix problem spots easily

Motivation: Seeing your progress in black and white helps you to carry on when your motivation is fading. If you find yourself floundering or far afield from your goals, one of the best ways to get back on track is to use your daily journal.

Coaching Troubleshooting: If you are not seeing results you expected, having your activities recorded will make it much easier for me to work with you to determine what is going on for you. Together we can evaluate what you have been doing and where you might adjust to reach your goals

Health Journals can be hand-written or maintained on-line using various programs developed for this purpose. It really doesn’t matter what format you use, as long as you have a tool that you can use consistently.

HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES OF JOURNAL TYPES TO CHOOSE FROM:

Handwritten Daily or Weekly Journal (paper-based)
On-line Daily Journal (using a Note-taker application such as Evernote – I use Evernote for ease of use & functionality)
On-line Daily Journal using “food trackers” like My Fitness Pal. (these are more for tracking calories, and exact amounts of things like carbohydrates, protein, etc., and probably more complex than what you need for this program)
On-line Weekly Journal using a program like Joe’s Goals. (I love this program, so easy to use!)