I took a Personalized Fitness class in college. Not by choice. It was a requirement. Yes, the University I attended is one of the few colleges that still requires you to take PE classes in order to graduate. Back then, I thought it was stupid. But now, I think it’s a great thing. And YES I did have a choice in what type of PE class I wanted to take. This one was the easiest one for me. Because the class only met once a week for 50 minutes. AND it was more of a lecture class with maybe about 4 class sessions of actual physical activity. But here’s the catch. I had to do some type of physical activity outside of class at least 3 times a week.
So how did my professor keep tabs of our workouts during the week? Yup, you guessed it. She also worked at our school’s gym facility. No, I’m joking. 🙂 Had you going there for a second, huh? 😉 Anyway, we were held accountable for the workouts we did by keeping a journal using her FITTE method (which I will explain in just a little bit). She would collect our journals biweekly to read through, grade and comment, and then hand it back to us the next time our class met. Of course, you knew who actually worked out and who didn’t. Because if you did work out at least 3 times a week, you’d definitely see some kind of result at the end of the semester. Whether it be an increase in our mile run (which was done once at the beginning of the semester and at the very end, as sort of an evaluation) or visible physical results like weight loss or muscle definition. So I’m pretty sure she knew who was lying and who wasn’t. Still. A fairly easy class to pass. Which is why it was only worth 1 unit.
Okay, so back to her journal method. I will say, that if anything, this is probably the most valuable tool I have used from this class. Yes the lectures were helpful, too, but do I remember any of it? Not really. My professor is an Olympian. She’s originally from Polland but has been living in the U.S. for about 20 years now. (You can Google her if you want. Her name is Anna Wlodarczyk.) ANYWAY! Back to the journal thing. She started training for the Olympics when she was 9 and she’s kept a journal of all her daily workouts since. She uses the FIITE format. Which stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, Type (of exercise), and Enjoyment. And the purpose of keeping this journal is simple. To keep track of what workouts you did and how you felt after the workout so that you can kinda go back and look to see if you’ve made any kind of progress. If you’ve improved. If you were able to achieve your short and long term goals. If you had injuries and what kind of struggles you faced. It’s all recorded in your journal. Some of us don’t have the best memories so a tool like this can come in handy.
Here’s an example of what my online journal in the Tone It Up Community looks like:
**CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR A BETTER VIEW**
At the time, I honestly didn’t think I’d ever use this FITTE method post college. But when I started working out like crazy again, I found myself relying on this method to help keep me on track of what I did and when I did it.
So I highly recommend keeping a journal…especially if you are trying to achieve a goal that you know can be hard to reach. You should try it. And then tell me what you think. 😉
fab . fit . me 