How to Write in a Journal

Keeping a fitness journal is a great way to make fitness goals and track your progress toward achieving them. You can sign up for an electronic fitness journal online or you can make your own. Whether you use the assistance of a computer or a regular notebook, here are some great ways to get the most out of a fitness journal.

Write Down your Goals

What fitness goals are you trying to achieve? Do you want to lose weight? Gain muscle? Run a Marathon? Try to be specific. Instead of just saying “to get healthy” say that you want to exercise daily. Being specific will help you feel more accomplished and have something to work toward when you have concrete goals.

Use stepping-stone goals. Start with small goals and work up to the bigger goals. For example, have goals to each 1 extra piece of fruit per day, drink 64 ounces of water per day, and walk 1 mile per day. These goals will begin to stack on each other and work towards more difficult goals.

Write down your goals and update them regularly. Updates will allow you to see your progress right in front of you. Also, when you see how you are progressing, you can modify your goals as necessary and add new ones.

Track your Numbers Progress

A lot of fitness goals will show progress by tracking numbers. If your goal is to do 30 push-ups at once, you should track each day or each workout session how many push-ups you can do. The same goes for repetitions of any exercises, cardio distance and time, and pounds for weight loss. If you are doing an online fitness journal, you can even graph your progress. Set up a spreadsheet where you enter in your progress. Then, build a graph for your results. This is great motivation.

Track your Physical and Emotional Progress

In addition to the numbers, you should track your physical and emotional progress. Physically, write down how you look and feel. Can you see more definition in your arms? Can you run 5 miles a lot faster? Can you see that you look thinner after losing 20 pounds?

Emotional progress is important as well. How does the progress you’ve made make you feel? Do you have more energy and feel happier? Do you feel like you are living a more successful life? Fitness affects you more than just physically. Understanding how everything comes together and tracking it in your fitness journal, whether you’re using a notebook and pen or an online program, will help you to be more successful overall.

If you love to write, you probably keep a journal or a diary. A diary probably makes you think of little girls and their diaries or a food diary when you’re trying to lose weight. If your keeping a chronology of your life, you are keeping a diary. A journal can be this, but it may be a little more. You could include anything from how you feel to a new short story you are writing.

There are many ways you can keep a diary or journal. The traditional way is through a notebook. You can carry it around with you and jot things down whenever you want. You can get very inexpensive notebooks or very expensive leather-bound journals. For many, it’s part of their creativity and style what journal they use.

In the digital age we live in, more and more of what you do is through electronics. Now journaling can be done with diary software, too. There are many advantages to diary software, but a few disadvantages that may keep you with your pen and paper.

Save your Work and Get to it Almost Anywhere

When you write on a computer, you can save your work and pick it up where you left off. If you have a laptop, you can carry it around with you just as a paper notebook. If you write through an online diary software program, you can access your diary wherever you have internet access.

Type Faster and Use Spell Check

Sometimes writing by hand can get very tiring, especially if you’re doing a lot of it. Typing is a lot faster. Also, many notebooks and journals are full of mistakes and having spell check can allow you to correct it right there. Although, many writers aren’t looking for perfection in their journal.

It’s also great for those who do a lot of story writing in their journal. Instead of having to manually transfer it to their computer, it’s already typed up and ready to edit and read. This makes capturing quick notes also easily at your disposal.

If you’re already at your Computer…

A lot of us spend a lot of time at our computer. Writers are one of them. If you write a lot or do anything at your computer often, you’re already at your computer, you might as well write in your journal there, too.

Carrying Convenience

While you can carry a laptop almost anywhere, that doesn’t include everywhere. You can carry a notebook anywhere, especially if it fits in your pocket. Also, you can whip it out and start writing without having to turn anything on or hope there is enough power left. Plus, if you don’t have a laptop, you can’t use one.

Less Secure

A diary software program is generally less secure, depending on how you treat it or a notebook. Some have built in passwords, but things can be broken into and leaked. However, a notebook can also be easily misplaced or stolen if left in the wrong place.

Extinguishing Creativity

Many people love to do more than just write in their journal. They sketch, doodle, paste in things, and use fancy handwriting. There’s never a substitute for good ole’fashioned hand-written words.

If you can’t choose between diary software and a notebook, there’s never anything wrong with balancing both.