New year, new you? If you’re like so many of us, January is the time to set new goals. But how do we keep our good intentions going all year long? Tracking your health and fitness goals can keep you motivated and pushing forward!
Here are four ways to help you track your fitness goals.
There’s an App for that!
A simple search on your app store will produce hundreds of options to choose from. You can easily find the style or features you want. Here are some of the top apps.
The most recognized, FitBit is an app that works alongside a FitBit device. It tracks not only your workouts and physical activity, but also your sleep patterns.
This app was second in line, after FitBit when I searched the app store for Fitness App. According to the app description it is a “calorie counter & food diary diet app”. You can track meals, join social groups, meet certain challenges and sync it with an exercise app.
Is similar to FitBit, in that it is an overall health monitor that syncs to a watch. You can track activities as well as sleep, and connect to other compatible fitness apps.
As its title suggests, this app tracks your steps. It also tracks calories burned, routes taken and generates graphs for you to see.
These apps can track a variety of things, activity, sleep, food, and it’s hard to lose because it’s on your phone. That convenience makes recording your workouts simple as long as your phone is by you. Also, most of these apps are free, and that’s hard to beat!
Bullet Journaling
Bullet journaling has taken the creative world by storm. So many styles and options you’re sure to find something that you want to work with.
There are tons of ideas out there for tracking health goals, including:
This is a page of squares that you color in with different colors according to your own set of parameters. If you are tracking Sleep, you might have up to 8 different colors representing differing amounts of sleep. This page is best for tracking just one thing, sleep, minutes of exercise, steps, etc. It can be a bit confusing to understand at a glance though, so it doesn't work for everyone.
Similar to a year in pixels this chart lists specific habits you are wanting to keep track of. You list your habits and then you have a row of squares, sometimes in a fun design, for that month. Each day you do it, you color it in the space. Missed days can be left blank, or colored with a different color. You can track multiple things with this, just make multiple rows of 30 shapes to color, or make a little calendar for each habit (as shown in image).
Here you create a chart, or graph that tracks your weight loss. Line graph works as you track monthly. You can also draw an outline of a person that has current measurements recorded. Then you can draw another outline for future measurements.
If you enjoy drawing and creating, bullet journals are very relaxing. Making it to your liking, and style, you have a lot of creative control. Similar to scrapbooking, it’s a way to look back on your life once your journal is completed.
However, Bullet Journaling is a time consuming hobby, life can get so busy it’s hard to find the time to sit down and bullet journal consistently. Plus, if you are using a bound journal, being afraid to make a mistake can keep you from actually getting started.
Calendar Simplicity
Simple is always in style and you can use calendars in a variety of ways.
Here are a few simple ideas for you:
Write down what you plan to do each day for a week, or even a month at a time, and simply cross it off when you did it.
Some of us don't want to plan ahead, but still want a record, so writing down what exercise was done each day, or how much sleep you got, right on the daily space of your calendar works great.
Great for when you want to expand on your fitness skills. One month you focus on jogging, the next month will be 30 days of yoga - you have 12 months to try different activities.
Tracking on a calendar is simple and customizable. It’s easy to find printable calendar templates online or in a spreadsheet program. These can be out and on display, which keeps the goals fresh in your mind. Trying to get moving in the morning? Tape your calendar page to your bathroom mirror to remind you first thing to get ready for your workout!
Calendar tracking is fast and simple, but honestly, it's not very exciting, and that could take the fun out of the challenge!
Charts of Success!
You might have seen our super popular Debt Payoff and Savings Charts, but did you know we also have a Health & Fitness Pack?
Same fun and creativity, different area of your life to track!
Great for running, jogging, hiking, or even swimming. Each space is a mile, how long will it take you to get to 100?!
Just like the 100 Mile Game, this version lets you determine the increment and the goal too. My niece's husband used this chart to track running 500 miles pushing his son in the stroller!
Health and fitness aren’t complete without taking time to care for your mental health. You could use each picture to represent that self care: tea, a bath, music. Or color in one picture as you do something for you!
Does she get a 10?! If you’re going to challenge yourself to eat healthy, give yourself some points when you do! Break it down for 2 weeks, or maybe you want to see if you can eat healthy for a whole month, this chart makes it easy.
Track what you want to track with this graph. You can track minutes of exercise, steps, how many times you used the weights. This graph is totally customizable.
And that's just a sample, there are 18 inspiring tracking pages in the pack!
Like apps and journaling, with these printable pages you can record and see your progress in real time.
Like the Bullet Journal, these charts are enjoyable, relaxing, satisfying and a great hobby to turn your goals into a reality!
Put these charts up where you can see them every day. You could put them on the fridge or on the bathroom mirror. These charts track your progress, reminding you that you’ve got this!
They are fast to download and print, and in a few minutes you can fill in the information you want on each page. Easy to do, no learning curve, just color. Pick and choose from 18 pages!
Made a mistake? No worries, print another page.
Don’t have a printer? These work in the digital world, too! My favorite app on my iPad for using these is GoodNotes5, but there are many options out there.
It’s never the wrong time to start on a healthier you. The options are endless to track those goals you’ve set. Find what works for you and get to tracking. As for me, I’m going to be coloring in my charts to a healthier me!
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Have you tried any of these four methods of tracking fitness goals? Let me know what has worked best for you in the comment section below!
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You can find the Health & Fitness Pack HERE and for limited time get 50% off with code GETHEALTHY
