9 Amazing Fitness Journal Ideas To Make Your Weight Loss Goals A Reality
Last Updated on 02/07/2024 by Nicky
9 Fitness Journal Ideas To Put In Your Bullet Journal Or Planner
When it comes to fitness, consistency is key (which is admittedly my Achilles heel).
If you also struggle with being consistent in your fitness journey, one of the best ways to stay on track is by writing down your progress and achievements.
It also helps to have a plan. Fortunately, you can find fitness journals that help you do both (stay on track and plan)!
The beauty of fitness journals and planners is that they help you focus on different aspects of your weight loss and health journeys, such as food journals, weight loss plans, and exercise plans, and set you up for success!
Yaaasss!
So today I’m sharing 9 fitness journal ideas that will inspire you to keep going even and especially when you want to give up!
Plus, I’ll be sharing the digital fitness journal and planner that’s in the HAYC shop so that you can track your health progress from anywhere!
Oh yeah, and this post contains affiliate links to great products that will help you in your health journey. I will get a commission if you decide to buy from these links but I’m only recommending products that I feel confident about and from companies that I trust like Amazon and others. Please let me know if you have any questions.
What Is A Fitness Journal & Planner?
A fitness or workout journal and planner is a paper or digital way to plan and write down all of the different aspects of your weight loss journey.
Bullet journaling (source) is all the rage right now so some people use that to plan their workout routines and for meal planning.
For me personally, I like to use a combination of both paper & digital bullet journaling & planning.
Writing my ideas down on paper helps me organize my thoughts better.
After I’ve created a plan, I can transfer those ideas to my digital planner.
That way I can have my fitness planner with me all the time and it’s easy to customize and change things around.
The digital planner I use is actually one I created in the free app Trello.
Trello is an extremely versatile productivity app that you can use to plan anything.
I plan my blog posts, vacations, Bible studies, prayer journals, to-do lists, and of course my weight loss journey on this app.
It’s totally free to use.
You can sign up for a free account here.
How To Make A Fitness Journal (3 Creative Ways)
Now you might be a DIYer who wants to create your own fitness journal which I totally understand because that’s what I did too!
It can really help you feel like you are in control of achieving your fitness goals. So let me just briefly guide you through the general steps of creating a workout journal so you can make one that fits you and your weight loss journey.
1) Choose Your Format:
First, decide whether you prefer a physical notebook, journal pages that you create on a computer and print out, or a completely digital journal.
Beautifully colorful physical notebooks offer a hands-on experience and can be easily customized with colorful pens, stickers, and drawings.
On the other hand, digital journals provide the convenience of accessibility from any device with the use of apps like Trello or Notion.
They often come with features like templates, prompts, and interactive tracking tools.
Printable journal pages give you the best of both worlds in the sense that you get to customize the journal digitally using software like Canva but you can then dress them up and make workout journal artistic like you could one made in a notebook.
Just choose the format that resonates best with your lifestyle and preferences. You might want to go crazy and do all 3!
2) Gather Your Materials:
If you opt for a physical fitness journal, gather materials such as a high-quality notebook, dot grid notebook, pens, markers, stickers, and any other decorative elements you’d like to incorporate like the journaling supplies I talk about in this post here.
For a digital journal (which is my favorite!), you’ll need a device such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer, along with a note-taking app or specialized fitness-tracking app like Trello.
Or you can create a free account with Canva and create fitness journal pages from scratch. There are tons of Canva tutorials on Youtube that will guide you through the process!
3) Define Your Sections:
Determine the sections you want to include in your fitness journal based on your health and fitness goals.
Common sections may include:
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- Fitness Tracker: Record your workouts, including duration, intensity, and type of exercise.
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- Nutrition Log: Track your daily meals, snacks, water intake, and calorie consumption.
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- Goal Setting: Set specific, measurable goals for your fitness journey and track your progress over time.
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- Reflections and Gratitude: Reflect on your achievements, challenges, and moments of gratitude related to your fitness journey.
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- Inspirational Quotes: Include motivational fitness quotes or affirmations to uplift and inspire you on challenging days.
I will go into more workout journal ideas later on in this post so stay tuned!
4) Customize Your Layout:
Whether you’re using a physical or digital journal, take the time to customize the layout to suit your preferences.
Experiment with different designs, colors, fonts, and organization techniques to create a visually appealing and functional journal that motivates you to stay consistent with your fitness routine.
5) Commit to Consistency:
Make a commitment to use your fitness journal regularly. Now I definitely won’t judge you on this because I don’t use mine every day but I do know that I am more successful in reaching my weight loss and fitness goals when I do use my workout journal every day.
I use a digital journal mostly because that’s the one that works best with my brain. I will use it RIGHT after I work out to record my progress.
Any time I think I will do it later, I laugh at myself and go ahead and record my progress right then and there. That’s because I know it’s a now-or-never kind of thing when it comes to my memory.
Be honest with yourself and decide what works best for you!
6) Review and Adjust:
Periodically review your fitness journal to assess your progress, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your goals as needed.
Celebrate your successes, learn from your challenges, and use your journal as a valuable tool for continuous growth and development on your fitness journey.
9 Fitness Or Workout Journal Ideas To Rock Your Weight Loss & Health Journey
Now that you know what a fitness journal is, let’s talk about some of the different sections you can put in your journal.
You could, of course, just have a cute little journal like this and write in it freestyle. But you might want one more structured than that.
You could take that same journal and turn it into a bullet fitness journal. Or you could create a digital fitness journal and planner.
However, you choose to create your planner, below are some ideas of what you can put in it.
You can mix and match or choose all of these ideas and then some!
1)Track Your Weight Every Month
If weight loss is one of your goals then you definitely want to keep track of your progress every month. How else can you know if you’re on the right track?
Writing down your weight at the beginning of each month is a powerful tool that will motivate you, especially once you start to see those changes in your body.
Not only should you write down your weight at the beginning of each month, but write down your measurements, and take a picture.
Your measurements and before and after photos might give you a better overall view of your progress than the actual scale.
2) Keep A Food Journal In Your Fitness Planner
What is a food journal you ask?
Well, it could be just as simple as writing down everything you eat or as thorough as writing down when you ate, how you felt before and after you ate, what you could change for your next meal to make it healthier, etc.
Keeping a food journal is one of the best ways to track your food intake and stay on top of what you’re putting in your body.
There’s something about seeing that you ate a triple Whopper and a large fry that makes you question your life’s choices, know what I mean?
Tracking and recording what you eat will help you make better choices when you’re grocery shopping when you’re at home, and when you go out to eat.
It also helps to keep you accountable, which will help you stick to your goals.
It might even embarrass you a little. In fact, you may not even want to write down what you ate because of that.
But please don’t let that stop you.
A food journal might just be what turns your whole weight loss expedition around and puts you on the right path.
I would suggest you write down the following: what you ate, how it made you feel, and if there is anything that could be improved. Make note of what time you ate or drank something, how hungry you were, and what emotions you were feeling at the time.
You can also log what you eat in terms of calories, fat, cholesterol, sugar, etc.
Another cool thing you could do is take photos of everything you eat and drink and place them in your journal.
Again this would be so easy to do with a digital fitness planner!
I’m doing this now in my fitness planner and it really makes you look at your meals in a different light.
When you see how few vegetables are on your plate, it makes you want to do a little meal makeover.
I just take a picture of my plate and upload it into my Trello fitness journal. Easy Peasy!
3)Add A Self-Care Journal
Self-care is often the first thing to go when we’re busy even though it’s crucial for our mental health.
With a self-care journal, you can schedule some much-needed relaxation and reflection time.
There are a lot of ways you can define self-care.
For some people, a hot bath or a bubble bath is a great way to relax and unwind.
I define it as activities you can do to improve your mental health… and I include beauty and spa treatments in that category fo sho!
Of course, self-care is not limited to spa days but could also include Bible journaling, coloring, decluttering, baking, or whatever it is that actually will make you feel more refreshed and centered.
The only limit is your imagination!
Whatever your version of self-care is, write it down and schedule it.
In my fitness journal, I have a self-care journal section where you can designate which days you want to get your self-care on.
You may decide you want to do a beauty mask every Tuesday.
Or you could decide to color Bible scripture pages every Thursday.
This is a great way to make yourself feel better after a challenging time.
4) Makeover your habits, one day at a time with habit-tracking checklists
Big changes come over time. And those big changes come from you making smaller changes every day.
That’s why it’s important to track your daily habits.
We want to replace bad habits with healthy habits so what you can do is have a list of the healthy things you want to do every day and just check them off as you do them.
A digital checklist would make it super easy but you can also do it with pen and paper as well!
Keeping track of the healthy things you want to accomplish will help you stay on track and avoid procrastination (another one of my Achilles heals…who knew you could have so many?).
5) Write Down Your Health & Fitness Goals & Challenges
Another great idea for your fitness journal is to write down your health goals and some of your fitness challenges.
What health milestones are you striving to reach?
Are you trying to work out for 30 minutes a day?
Then write that down and track the number of days in a row you manage to do the workout.
Say you want to be able to hold a plank for 1 minute. If you’re a beginner, you probably won’t start off holding a 1-minute plank.
On the first day, you may only do 10 seconds.
Then the next day you might hold a plank for 15 seconds.
As you reach a new milestone, write it down so you can stay motivated to meet your goal. (example: November 3: held plank for 20 seconds on my elbows, November 5: held plank for 25 on my hands, etc.)
Or say you struggle to do 10 push-ups? Write it down! Don’t be ashamed! And then start by doing 2 push-ups a day and then 3 and so on.
You can also keep track of how you feel during your workouts.
For example, I know sometimes when I work out, I feel tired or sore afterward.
So in my fitness journal, I could write down the workout that I did, how long the workout was, my energy levels, and how my body felt before, during, and after the workout.
It might be that I’m not doing enough or that I’m doing too much. A health journal will help you monitor this so you can know if you need to work out harder or pull back a little.
Include a list of your health goals and your progress, your weight loss goals, and any changes in body measurements in your fitness journal, and be sure to write down the date.
Then you can record your monthly progress. In my You Glow Girl fitness journal and planner, you have plenty of space to write this all down and more!
6) Plan & Track Your Workouts
We all have such a busy schedule but we know we need an exercise routine!
It’s important because cardio and strength training accelerate our weight loss and have so many other benefits for our physical health.
So what can we do to make sure we stay loyal to our workout plan?
We can plan and track our workouts each week to make sure they actually happen!
You could even share your workout log with a friend or family member who can help you stay accountable, or just keep it as a record for yourself. Use a fitness log to record all of your workout sessions!
An easy way to create fitness trackers is with a free digital app like Trello.
You can create a board with your fitness routine and share that board with a friend or whoever you like so they can check on you and encourage you in your journey.
I’ll show you an example of this later so stay tuned!
You can also take a picture or video of yourself doing your workout routines and put it in your journal as a way to motivate yourself to keep going!
7) Track your sleep patterns.
Another important aspect of weight loss is the quality of your sleep. I know when I don’t get enough sleep, I am hungrier throughout the day which of course throws me off my diet plan.
So use a sleep tracker to help you monitor what you should and shouldn’t do in order to have a good night’s rest.
So how do you do this?
You can wear an activity tracker, like a Fitbit to bed and it will tell you all kinds of info about your sleep quality.
You can use a bullet journal and write down the time when you go to bed, when you wake up, how much water you drank before bed, how much caffeine you drank before bed, etc.
Or you can use a digital planner and record the same information there.
8) Set up a rewards system.
Losing weight is brutal so why not reward yourself every time you reach one of your health goals?
Write down a list of things you want.
Then when you hold that one-minute plank, reward yourself for your hard work with one of the items or activities on your list.
This will motivate you to keep going no matter what!
Just remember that you need those rest days too so don’t overdo it!
9) Make A Healthy Bucket List
Start a healthy bucket list. This is a list of things you want to do before you die.
It might include things like “run a marathon” or “eat a raw vegan diet.”
Maybe you want to climb a mountain but you know you aren’t in any shape to do that at the moment.
It might sound a little strange but having a healthy bucket list is just another little way to help you stay motivated in your health journey!
10) Weight Loss Journaling Prompts
Here’s another weight loss journal idea… put weight loss journaling prompts like these in your fitness journal. Weight loss writing prompts could be a game changer when it comes to meeting your fitness goals! I know it might seem silly.
How can writing help me lose weight, you might be asking. I hear you. But what you may or may not know is that for many of us (me included!), what we eat and how much we eat is a direct reflection of our emotional state.
It’s called emotional eating when we turn to food not just for nutrition and or a pleasurable experience but to ignore our feelings. But using weight loss journal prompts can act as a friend and confidant where you can safely share your painful secrets and emotions without judgment.
You’ve got to try them! I’ll warn you…you might cry as you uncover long-buried feelings that you hoped would stay hidden but I promise you will eventually feel so much better for it.
Sometimes you have to feel worse before you feel better I’m sorry to say but I know you can do it!
Where To Get A Digital Workout Planner With These Fitness Journal Ideas
Of course, you could totally go old school and create a paper bullet journal with all of these different sections in your journal.
Designing your own journal is so much fun and super satisfying.
However, I know for me I prefer to have a journal and planner that is with me all the time.
I love for a planner to be on my phone.
That’s why I created the You Glow Girl Fitness Digital Planner and Journal!
This fully digital planner can be used with the free app, Trello.
Let me tell you about it…
The New Year New You Fitness Journal has a:
- Weight Loss Prayer Journal: These 15+ weight loss prayer prompts give you space to pour out your heart to God about all the different aspects of your fitness and weight loss journey
- Fitness & Weight Loss Goals Journal: This gives you space to explore and reflect on things like what diets have or have not worked in the past, why you may have gained weight in the first place, childhood trauma, etc.
- Scripture Meditation Journal: This is where you get to listen to what God is saying to you about your health journey and the changes He wants you to make. I’ve picked over 10 scriptures for you to meditate over as you listen for His voice.
- Monthly Progress Tracker: The next section is where you track your monthly weight loss progress as well as your measurements. At the end of the quarter, you can jot down any ideas or thoughts you have about the last 3 months and any changes you want to make to your healthy lifestyle
- Daily Health Habit Tracker: Track your habits on a daily basis with this checklist of healthy habits! You can easily check each habit off as you do them. Every day of the year has a list of healthy habits you can incorporate into your new healthier lifestyle and check off as you complete them. You can keep the checklists as is or customize them to your liking!
- Daily Meal Planner: While exercise is important, the most important thing you can do for good health is to eat healthier. That’s why I included a section for meal planning. You can duplicate this meal planner list and plan meals for every month of the year easily!
- Meal Idea Sections: Here you can write down your favorite breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and dessert ideas! And as a bonus, there’s a section to write your favorite restaurant meals too!
- Beauty & Self-Care Planner: Self-care is vital to your physical and mental health but many times we say we are going to read a book or have a spa day but we put it off and it never happens. That’s why it’s important to schedule self-care and beauty activities and now you can, using the self-care part of this planner.
- Exercise Planner: And last but certainly not least we have an exercise planner so you can plan your workout sessions for the week. Keep track of your favorite workout videos and playlists. And be sure to jot down which workouts gave you the best results. You can check out this digital fitness and weight loss journal here if you are interested.
Click here to learn more about the You Glow Girl digital fitness journal!
What Will You Put In Your Workout Journal?
Whew…As you can see, there are many different things you can keep in a fitness journal. It really is up to you to decide what sections of a journal you want to create.
You can buy your own fitness journal or make one yourself. As long as your journal and planner keep you moving forward towards your health goals then you can’t go wrong.
No matter what type of journal you choose, be sure that it has a space for your goals and the progress you want to make. This will help to keep you focused and on track!
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