Keeping Track!

By far, the biggest component to achieving your fitness and weight loss goals is to keep track of what you do! Without some type of tracking system (it doesn't need to be complicated), you will literally have no idea if you are making progress or losing your fitness battle.

Become a student of yourself
Keeping a food journal and workout log helps you determine what works best for you. Everyone achieves their results in a different way. For example, some people need to do a little more cardiovascular exercise than others to see bodyfat loss. Or, you might find that by weight training four times each week instead of six times, your body is a bit stronger and more capable of pushing heavier weight. You may also find that if you eat lots of starchy carbohydrate food, you really don't gain weight when you exercise regularly! You will never be able to find out these aspects about yourself if you don't keep track!

What works for me, doesn't always work for you
After doing a few bodybuilding competitions (and kept good records), I discovered that I can eat a lot more than a lot of other people and still get my body to one of the leanest states the human body can naturally become (without severe illness). In fact, I tend to flaunt how I can eat 2 or 3 bananas each day and still shed pounds of bodyfat on a weekly basis. :) In fact, I eat about 3000 calories each day when I am "dieting" for a competition and I consume about 4000 calories to maintain my weight. However, I would never have discovered this if I never kept track of the food that I ate and the workouts that I did.
Now, just because I can eat these foods in a large quantity, and still lose weight, this doesn't mean that I would make the same recommendation to a 150lb female. You have to find out what works best for you.
I am also in preparation for another bodybuilding competition that is about to happen in a little less than 4 weeks from now. All I have to do now is look back to my old records from what I did for my last competition and either decide to follow it so that I will come in the same condition as last time or decide to do a little more than last time and maybe come in a little better condition. Again, I would have no clue how well I could do without having these records. It also allows me to keep my faith strong when I am not seeing everything that I want to see in the mirror. It's just a matter of following the blazon trail that I tracked before.

Keeping track keeps you on track!
I can tell right away the clients who will be successful with their goals within the first day we train. The number one thing that makes all the difference is if this client has kept track of their food and is keeping good workout records. If the client has kept a food journal (online is probably the easiest and best type) then all I have to do is steer him or her to their weight loss and fitness goals. If he or she doesn't keep track, the only chance of being successful is random chance.
ACE (American Council on Exercise) conducted a study and found that people who keep track of what they eat will be more than 100% successful in their weight loss/fitness goals than people who never keep track! The researchers found that those who kept track thought about the food just a little bit more before they made the final commitment and ate it. Knowing that you have to write down the second helping of cheesecake, it makes many people a little more conscious about their behaviours. Keeping track is by far the smartest way to make sure you stay on track with your goals!

It gives you Positive Feedback
When you keep track of your workouts and diet, you are able to see clearly when you have hit new highs and achieved greater success. For example, you may go to the gym and workout and think you are having a great workout because you did 12 pullups, however you did 15 pullups 2 weeks ago, but just because your body is tired, you think you are making progress and you are really just fooling yourself.
Of course, the opposite scenario can occur as well. You may squat 330lbs for 6 reps and be bummed. You thought you had done 350lbs last week, but you didn't it was actually only 250lbs, but because you never wrote it down, you had no clue you just set a huge record!
Your training records give you something to shoot for with each training session that you have. If you don't keep track, how can you make sure you can keep pushing yourself forward? If you don't keep pushing your own limits, you will not likely see the progress you want.
Your diet records give you the guidelines to shoot for each day. If you continue to meet the guidelines that you have set, than all you have to do is wait for the results to show up. You will have done everything that is within your power, and now you get to have faith and patiently wait for God to take care of the rest!

My recommendation
For a diet journal, you can either manually write down what you eat and drink in a diet journal book or even in a plain notebook. However, I have found that a very easy and convenient way to track your diet is with an online tracker like http://www.myfitnesspal.com/. This has been by far the best website to track meals because of the huge database of food that it has. It has many restaurant foods and about 95% of everything you would normally consume on a daily basis. After entering all your food and beverages in, you can see the total caloric, macro and micronutrient breakdowns, it's very enlightening!
I use this website personally to track my diet and all of my successful clients use it as well. The website is totally free to use for tracking your diet. Unfortunately, I don't get any referral bonus for it, otherwise I would be making millions :( since I refer just about everyone to it.
For your workouts, I would recommend just a training journal that you either get in a bookstore or even a plain notebook. Just as long as you can easily carry it with you when you workout so that you can note all of the progress you are making in the gym!

Keeping track really does keep you on track! Start today with taking charge of your fitness and weight loss goals by tracking what you do!

"By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see." Acts 3:16 (New International Version)