Keep an Exercise Log to Record Your Daily Activity

If you have decided to use diet and exercise to shed weight, try creating an exercise chart to put up on your fridge or tape to the bathroom mirror. An exercise log can help you see results and keep you on track toward your weight loss goal.

Make a grid on a piece of paper with space to record the date along the side and 10-minute time slots along the top, as shown here. As you complete your exercise sessions, make an X in the box that corresponds to the amount of time that you exercised.

Here's a Sample of What Your Walking Log Might Look Like
Date	10	20	30	40	60	Total
Sunday	XX	XX				60
Monday				X		40
Tuesday		X		X		60
Wednesday	XX		X			50
Thursday	X	XX	X			80
Friday					X	60
Saturday	XX	X	X			70

Focus first on increasing the length of time that you exercise and then shift your efforts to increasing the intensity. For example, after you’re comfortable with walking, you can add a variety of activities to total your 60 minutes — for example, jogging, hiking, or working out with weights.

After you reach your goal of 60 minutes of daily exercise, begin jotting down the kind of exercise that you do in the column that corresponds to the amount of time you’re active. (Your goal, even after you’ve moved past the walking-only stage, is still 60 minutes a day.)

Here's a Sample Exercise Log
Day	10	20	30	40	50	60	Total
Sunday	jog	swim	walk				60
Monday	walk		walk				40
Tuesday			jog	walk			70
Wednesday			cycle		walk		80
Thursday	walk		jog			hike	100
Friday						walk	60
Saturday			walk			cycle	90

Rather than time your walks, you can count your steps. The goal is 10,000 steps, which translates closely to the recommendations made by the Surgeon General to engage in at least 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week. A simple $20 to $30 pedometer attached to your belt can do the counting for you.

Wear a pedometer for a few days to get a sense of how many steps your normal routine takes. (Most inactive people take only 2,000 to 4,000 steps a day.) When you know how many steps you normally take, add about 500 extra steps for a few days, then add 500 more, and so on.

Moderately active people take 5,000 to 7,000 and active people reach the 10,000-step mark, or about 5 miles. To help with your weight-loss plan, you’ll need to move up to a minimum of 12,000 to 15,000 steps a day (or 45 minutes) — and ideally 20,000 steps or about 1 hour.

As you step up your count, you’ll find that you’ll need to add walking to your day in order to make your target. Check out the following ways to work more walking into your day:

Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Park in the farthest spot in the lot
Walk with the dog
Walk to the bus stop with the children
Dance
Park the golf cart and walk the course.
Cruise around the shopping mall three times before starting to shop
Pace the long corridors of the airport while waiting for a flight, and stay off the moving sidewalks
Give up e-mail or phone calls and walk to your co-workers’ desks.