In February, Boyfriend and I did a challenge to eat at least 3 cups of vegetables a day.  I’ve continued to track it since then, and I’m definitely more mindful of how many vegetables I eat.  Tracking habits can be a helpful way to determine your current level and give you a baseline to create future goals.

Last month I talked about how to plan a workout routine.  So now that you have a plan, it’s helpful to track your progress.  If you track your progress you can continue to challenge yourself and make goals based on past performance.  Knowing where you’re coming from can guide your plans and goals going forward.  If your goal was to go to the gym twice a week, at the end of the month do you know if you achieved it?  Tracking creates accountability.

Whether you apply tracking to your diet or workouts, the idea is the same.  Track what you’re doing so you can make SMART goals.  I like to go old school and track in paper and pencil.  But if you’re more high-tech or know that if you don’t have it handy (like on your ever present phone), check out this list of tracking apps.

Focus on one or two habits to begin with.  You don’t want to be overwhelmed by too many goals at once.

Review your progress regularly.  At the end of the month look at your progress; is it time to level-up or do you need to be more realistic about what you can accomplish?  Check out this article for other tips on habit tracking.

Ideas to try (but not all at once):

Dietary

• Eat __ cups of vegetables a day
• Eat __ cups of fruit a day
• Don’t eat out
• Cooked at home
• Meatless meals

Fitness

• Strength training __ days a week
• Flexibility training __ days a week
• Cardio __ days a week
• Warm-up before every workout
• Cool-down after every workout
• Workout __ minutes a day/week
• ___ steps a day

What goals are you tracking?  How do you track your progress?