Tag Archives: My Plate at LiveStrong

The Chunky Dunker’s Club, Week 5

Good evening!

Welcome to week 5, of the Chunky Dunker’s Club!!! Can you believe it has been Five weeks already??

Every week I post a new Chunky Dunker’s article ever Wednesday evening, and you have the opportunity to comment, and cheer each other as you each go through your journey to get fit and healthy!!! We will discuss hints, tips, and ideas on losing weight, staying motivated, and achieving your fitness goals, whether that is to lose 5 pounds, to do 10 sit-ups, or just incorporate some healthy habits into your daily life!!

Before I get on tonight’s topic, I am VERY HAPPY to report that I have lost 7.2 pounds since our very first week!!!! YEAH!!!

Tonight’s topic: Tracking Your Way Towards Progress

By no means am I an expert in this area, but I am coming to realize that tracking your journey could be the key to your fitness success. The primary benefit of logging your diet and exercise is motivation. It is much easier to stay on track if you can look back after sticking to your program for a period of time and see that you’ve lost several pounds or shaved a few seconds off your routine neighborhood run; and if you should keep your weekly weight on a simple chart, then you can see that descending line or the ascending graph of your weight loss progress. These visual cues are reminders that you are taking small steps each and every day toward your larger goal and it’s working.

Having your diet and exercise plan in writing greatly increases your chances of sticking to them versus simply trying to “cut back” on unhealthy foods or “exercise more”. Defined goals and plans to reach those goals will ensure that you achieve what you wish. Sometimes your mind will tell you that you’ve been exercising regularly when you can look back at your training log and see clearly and definitively that you’ve only averaged one workout per week for the past month. I find that when I track my food, I actually have eaten more than what I thought I had, or eaten more of the wrong things, then what my memory could recollect, which is why writing it down has become key for me.

Whether your goal is to lose 10 pounds by next summer, lower your blood pressure by 5 points, or shave 30 seconds off your weekly club 10k time trial, you will need a plan. By tracking your exercise times, distance, diet, measurements, feelings, and any other thoughts or goings on a daily basis you will be in a much better position to understand what you need to do to reach your goal.

There are many ways you can start tracking your progress. There are many online tools that you can use, my personal favorite is LiveStrong.com Thier . Or, you can keep your details in a journal, spiral notebook, or some other paper-based device – the choice is yours. I personally track my food and exercise using LiveStrong.com’s My Plate (which is free, btw) and I journal for the most part either on paper, or on my daily blog, which most of you already read. 🙂 I weigh and measure every Wednesday morning, and I LOVE keeping that progress in a simple Excel graph! Being visual it is GREAT motivation to keep doing a good job!
So, tell me what you think?? Is tracking your progress something that you might want to do? If so how, and what are you going to start tracking? Also, how has your Kaizen assignment been going from last week? Also, I want to know what is working, and what isn’t working with our Chunky Dunker’s Club. Do you have any ideas that might help us make our group more successful? I am always up for suggestions!!
With that, I am going to wrap it up, and we can open up our discussion in the comment section of this posting!
Have a FABULOUS evening!! 😉