Next Up Previous Contents Index
Next: Private and portable Up: Progress and motivation Previous: View from a

Daily and monthly feedback

Just as the feedback of the record sheet and charts is essential to controlling your weight, similar feedback can help you meet your fitness goals. The daily feedback in the exercise program is even more visceral than the number on a scale or a daily trend figure. It's how you feel after doing the exercises each day. If you progress up the rungs at the pace your body dictates, each day's exercise will leave you pleasantly invigorated. If you drop out of the program for a few days and try to jump back in at the same rung where you left it, you'll notice the difference--right away!

Instead of a vague sense of your fitness and stamina slipping away, you'll see precisely how much you've lost by neglecting your body's need for exercise. Precisely, since after this happens and you drop back as many rungs as you need to resume the program without pain or exhaustion, your log will reflect the loss in fitness from neglecting daily exercise.

As you note each day's level in the ``Rung'' field of the log sheet and enter those data into the spreadsheet every month, you're amassing a permanent record of your progress toward fitness. Just as the declining, then leveling out trend line on the weight chart shows your success in controlling your weight, the ascending exercise rung line documents, month after month, your climb toward and eventual maintenance of physical fitness. Looking back at your old charts and recalling the difference in how you felt then and now will make it easy to keep going.


By John Walker