Fit Day

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Today's Workout: Total Body - 5 min warm up on the elliptical. 2 X 20 walking lunges, 2 x 20 squats, 2 x 20 dead lifts, 2 x 20 bench press on stability ball, 2 x 20 overhead press on stability ball, 2 x 20 triceps dips, 20 ball pass core, crunches on stability ball with weight, and 60 second plank.

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With 2012 coming to a rapid close, a new year is right around the corner. As a general rule, people like to use this to jump start a health kick. One key way to achieve your goals is holding yourself accountable.

It can be really difficult as busy adults to make sure we are exercising enough, eating enough of all the right things, and staying on pace with our target goals.

One of my favorite tools while I was a college athlete was Fit Day. It is a FREE online exercise and weight loss journal that allows you to create goals, track food, log activity and see progress.

I think one of the best tools is the weight log. You enter your current weight, your goal weight, and when you want to reach that goal weight (realistically). This is great if you want to get fit for a specific trip, a wedding, a birthday, etc. It will then tell you what your allotted caloric intake per day should be to achieve this weight loss, how much you should be losing a day/week, how many calories you should burn, etc. - It is like having your own personal nutritionist.

My weight is significantly higher than what it used to be, and what I would like it to be. I can use my crazy work schedule, grad school, holidays, and everything as an excuse, but the reality is I am responsible for my own actions and I can take control of the situation. I would like to get back down to my college weight of 125. Considering this was my peak running form, I know it may be difficult, and I would be happy in the 130-range, but I want to set a high goal for myself. I decided to pull this tool back out and use it to keep me on track.

Another great tool is the food log. You can search for something that you at, or manually log in the nutrition information. It will keep track of your caloric intake, the percent of carbs/proteins/fats etc. and show you which areas of your diet need a little cutting back and which need a little more consumption.

This is only an example above (I am definitely eating more than 600 calories a day). As you add to your log, you will get a pie chart (as seen above) showing a breakdown of your diet.

The log you can use for exercise is similar. You can look up the activity adjust it to you workout, and account for it.

One thing to keep in mind, your workout is not the only time of day you are expending calories. The site does have you identify you life style (mine due to work is mostly sedentary) and it accounts for these in "lifestyle" caloric expenditure. But, this site also allows you to account for so many other activities in your day - walking, grocery shopping, even talking on the phone (!?!?). It is up to you if you want to include these in your caloric expenditure for the day, but remember just because you are not in you lululemon does not mean you are not cutting cals.

I will try to update you all once a week on how I'm doing. Hopefully this will help keep me accountable :) I hope this tool helps some of you reach your personal health goals!