I’ve noticed that a log of people like to have something to printout or store right on their computer when it comes to their exercise log. Just like the printable food diary that I posted a few months ago, you can download this as a PDF and print it out right now.

Printable Exercise Log as PDF

This is a very simple printable exercise log that will get you where you’re going. It will help you track exercise, difficulty, and other important values, without getting in your way. The best part is that you can easily transfer your information into your fitness log here at maintainfit.com for graphing and storage.

Post a comment with questions or suggestions.

I’ve been promising for a while to make some videos that would illustrate the features available in maintainfit.com.  Today I made a quick video showing you how to create graphs and charts form within your exercise log. Before I show you the video, here is a short list of some of the features:

• Line charts
• Horizontal and vertical bar charts
• Pie charts
• Custom date ranges
• Download chart as image
• Chart by any field in your log
• PDF printable reports including graphics

There’s more you can do and I’d also love to hear what you think about this feature.  Leave a comment below telling me what you think.  If you’ve used this feature, is there anything you would change?  If you’re still waiting, then login today and create a chart of your favorite exercise or log (for example, the line chart is fantastic for charting changes in weight using the weight log).

If this video is hard to follow you can download a pristine HD version using this link (right click and choose save as to download): Exercise Log Charts and Graphs [HD].

So I’ve been posting resources about either downloading or making a printable food diary. The first resource I posted was this food diary, but I found the some people had very particular needs about what they wanted to track. So I went ahead and created this post about how to create your own food diary.

If my original version wasn’t enough or you just want some other alternatives, Google may have your answer. I this short video I show you one compelling alternative that I found on Google.

When I say compelling, it’s important to understand that what I mean is it must be simple. You would say that the probability of you keeping a consistent, daily food diary is inversely proportional to it’s complexity. That’s a fancy way of saying that the harder it is to track your meals, the less likely you are to do it.

So stop fretting and get started logging your hours today. And just in case you need a little more motivation, you should read these posts I’ve put on about the risks of poor diet choices. It turns out that your diet alone is a strong indicator of whether or not you’ll end up with heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Have a read on some of these:

• America keeps getting fatter
• Too much red meat increases risk of death
• Healthy lifestyle best way to beat cancer: new evidence shows
• Run to live longer and healthier (slow the aging clock)

The fact is that by monitoring and managing your diet, you can realize some big health gains.  Take a minute and watch the video below to get some ideas of alternative printable food diaries.  Then, take a minute and leave a comment.

I put a printable food diary up on the blog a week or two ago and had some good feedback about it. One thing that some people were interested in was the ability to make it a little more personal (custom). I kept mine pretty simple on purpose, since in my experience the more simple something is, the more likely it is to get done.

But, if you’re the type that want’s to tack everything under the sun, you might want to create a personalize food log/diary that meets your specific needs. Keep in mind that customizing the fields that you keep track of is easy inside maintainfit.com, but if you want to make your own printable food diary that is custom for what you want, maybe you should try using Excel.

It’s really pretty basic, so if you’re reasonable good with Excel you shouldn’t have any trouble at all. For example, if you want to track grams of sugar, trans fat, saturated fat and calories, you would just add each one to a heading. You can use the page break view to see how it will print out and then print it to record your meals/snacks for the week. You can even come back and update your food diary in Excel to keep a running total (don’t forget to add a date column in that case).

I made this short video to show you what i mean. After you watch it, take a minute and post your comments about the video here.

I’ve just posted a new video for the homepage of Maintain Fit that teaches the two best techniques I’ve ever learned for consistent, effective motivation to get out the door and exercise.  The stem from my nine years as a runner.

The first is social obligation, which is best illustrated by a running partner.  When you commit to someone that you’ll meet them for a workout or a run, then you socially obligate yourself to show up and greatly increase your chances of getting out the door.

The next technique is called psychological momentum, and has a lot to do with how to form habits.  This technique takes advantage of a fitness log to make your progress toward specific goals more noticeable and to provide you with momentum (motivation) to stick with it on the low days.

The video runs about six minutes and is the first of several that I plan to produce.  Others will deal with these techniques, but will also highlight the best features on Maintain Fit.

Leave your comments about the homepage video in this post.  You can watch the video here free personal fitness log.

(skip to the bottom to just print out your printable food diary [PDF])

How important is what you eat?  It may be the single biggest lifestyle choice that’s within your complete control that affects your health and longevity.  In recent years, mounting scientific evidence has clearly shown the relationship between diet and cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

It’s also shown the flip side, that when we make good diet choices, like whole grains and vegetables, our health and energy increase.  So what’s keeping us from all making the diet choices that are necessary to enjoy life to the fullest?

Food is social (and emotional)

The first thing that comes to mind is my mom’s Sunday roast beef and mashed potatoes dinner.  I can’t think of a more comforting meal, and I would guess that you have one too.  Food was a social thing long before it was a cause of disease.

In fact, the taste, smell and setting for each meal registers much higher in our minds than the nutrition label, which is why it’s so important to get in the habit of making deliberate health choices.  I was reminded of this again while reading in the Runners World magazine today.

Trade off between meat and veggies

They discussed the benefits of eating a variety of foods, mentioning that it wasn’t necessarily healthy to eat only meat or only veggies.  Some of the reasons they gave include the fact that meats contain some really beneficial nutrients, like iron, zinc, protein and B vitamins.  Fish have omega-3 fatty acids.  But these come with the negatives of saturated fat and cholesterol.

So, they suggested that a good balance is where you’ll find the biggest benefits.  But beware of changing your diet too quickly.  The human body needs time to adjust to new foods.  For example, changing your diet to include whole grain and lots of legumes can be a bit of a shock to the body.  It’s best to start small, maybe substituting some lentils for some meat in your dinner.

Dramatic changes in health from small changes in diet

Mark Bittman, author of Food Matters, told of how cutting back on meat in his diet lowered his cholesterol, his blood sugar decreased and he lost 35 pounds.  That all happened within a few months.  He even said that because he felt lighter his knees started to work again.

Even if you gave up one cheeseburger a week, that’s something.  And over time you can replace it with more healthy alternatives.

Diet resources

As I was looking into this I found that there was a need for a printable  food diary.  I created a printable food diary based on the food log inside Maintain Fit (if you haven’t already, go here to sign up for an  exercise log).  Here is the food diary:

Printable Food Diary

In case you wanted to go a little deeper, here are links to the books I mentioned in this post

As a final resource you could keep track of your health by following the HCG Diet to maintain your desired body.

Don’t forget to post a comment and share what works for you or suggest items that you would like to see in the food log or this printable food diary.

I’ve been hearing all about the triathlon circuit for a while.  It’s really picked up a lot of interest in recent years.  Nine years ago when I started running I hardly heard about it, even though there were a lot of runners and cyclists back then, but they mostly stayed in their own element and group.  I’m hearing a lot more about it with triathlons these days.

In fact, you’ll remember that a while back I interviewed Jim Mishler, an 18 year veteran of the sport.  At the time of the interview he had done about 170 triathlons if I remember right.  He gave some terrific pointers for beginners and advanced triathletes.   Maintain Fit members have access to the interview and transcript.

I did my first bricks workout

Well, despite doing that interview so long ago, I hadn’t ever gotten out and done a brick workout.  In a triathlon, the transition from cycling to running is called bricks because when you get off your bike and start running, your feet feel like they have bricks on them.  This may feel more or less pronounced depending on how strong a runner you are.  Nevertheless, they call it a brick workout and it’s arguably the most challenging transition in the race.

I suppose I’d been putting off my brick workouts for a few reasons, one being that I didn’t have a great bike.  I ride a very old Univega mountain bike (and unfortunately I don’t have the cash to go get a nice road bike).  I also don’t have a lot of cycling gear (like those fancy pants with the gel bottom!).  So I have every excuse in the world…

but…

I finally spend $40-$50 on some new slick(er) tires for my bike and did a small tune up, which basically means I adjusted the shifters and oiled the bike.  And then, I did exactly what you might imagine.  Yep, that’s right, I didn’t go out riding for a long time (probably three or four weeks).

OK, so I really did my first bricks workout

Well, my procrastination started to get to me and I figured that to keep up with the guys at work, I had better get on my bike and see what I could do.  I sat down first and logged into my exercise log on Maintain Fit and used the google map feature to plan my course.  I came up with a route that would take me 13.4 miles for the bike ride and I would follow up with a run.

I didn’t know how far I would run and I didn’t even start until after dark.  In fact, I didn’t start my run (first brick run) until 10:20 pm.  No worry, I just ran a mile and I thought it wasn’t so bad.  I was pleased that I maintained a pace of about 16 mph throughout my bike ride.

So far so good, except, I didn’t feel like I had bricks on my feet.  What were those guys talking about?

Then I did a second bricks workout

So just this past Saturday I decided I would get up and do a more aggressive ride and run in the morning.  I sat down with my exercise log and mapped out a 17.4 mile course and a 3 mile run.  Just like the first time, I was able to maintain a pace of roughly 16 mph, and about 9 min/mile.  This time however, as soon as I transitioned, my legs definitely felt different.

As I started out, I had to consciously think about each step and make sure I was putting my foot down flat.  I was a bit worried at first since I don’t want to re-injure my broken ankle (I’ve been meaning to post the x-rays.  remind me if you don’t see them soon).

After the first mile I was noticably more tired than usual, but I had started to regain a normal gate.  The miles went by and I finished up my second bricks workout.  Boy was I tired!  Just to show you how retro my bike is I had my wife snap a shot of me with my bike when I finished.  And for those of you who will ask, YES, I really did ride in my running clothes (I don’t have anything else).  Here’s the shot:

The next thing will be to do more swimming, but I don’t have a membership to a pool, so I’ll have to figure  out how to get access to one that doesn’t cost me a ton of money.

Tell me about your bricks workouts

If you’ve recently done a bricks workout, post a comment and tell me what you thought of it.  Also post pointers and tips you might have found along the way.

Obviously I’m a big fan of using an exercise log, but you might not know exactly why. There is actually a psychological aspect to it, and it’s one that can make the difference between you enjoying a long and health life, or wasting away on the couch.  The principle is something I call psychological momentum, and it’s a critical part of your exercise plan.

Here’s how it works.  When you carefully keep a log of what you’ve done (it doesn’t have to be a lot of information, just so long as it’s consistent), you build momentum.  The momentum you perceive in your mind will get your through the down times.  The internal conversation goes something like this: “I’ve come so far and done so much.  I can’t just quit”.  There’s a lot more to it than that, and I explain some of it in this video.

Have a look and then leave a comment with your own experience and how a log has helped you succeed in exercise.

In the last two videos I’ve talked about how to includes others in your exercise efforts to get you out the door.  If finding an exercise partner is too difficult or you just want to make sure you reach maximum motivation, you’ll love this video.

What I explain here is how to use online social sites, like twitter, facebook and the like, to socially commit yourself to each workout.  While this isn’t as powerful as setting a time to meet a specific person, this is still a really worthwhile tactic to keep in your bag of tricks.

Give it a try and come post about your results (especially if you find a better way that what I’ve come up with to do it).

The last video I posted was about starting an exercise program using social obligation.  This video talks about one of the biggest objections that I get from people when it comes to finding a partner to exercise with.  Drumroll please….

He’ll run faster/slower than me.

I suppose it could be any number of things, like cycling further, swimming better, etc., but what it really comes down to is that asking someone to exercise with you can make you feel vulnerable and embarrassed.  I don’t discount the concern, but I think that a lot of people worry way too much about it.

In my own experience, and in conversations with dozens of people, the differences between difference partners isn’t that big a deal as long as you have a healthy idea of why you’re out there in the first place.  If you’re primary purpose is to get some exercise then the most important role a partner plays is to get you out the door.  Remember that you’re not there to compete with your partner, but to work with her.

Have a look at the video and then post your comments sharing your own experience.