NWPT Results Manual - Section 7

ACTIVITY & NUTRITION LOGS

“Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point”

Harold V. Melchert

Keeping a Food and Activity Log

Studies have shown that just the act of recording your exercise and food intake significantly improves your habits. Also, logging your nutrition and activity will point out habits or patterns that you have developed. Just noticing these patterns is the first step to improving your lifestyle. Most of our clients have had a lot of success with recording their diet and activity daily and having their trainer review. Its amazing how much easier it is to stay on track when you know your trainer is going to be checking up on you!

We have an NWPT APP that allows you to input your activity and will even sync with many SMART watches. You can record your meals and snacks and it will calculate your caloric, protein, carbs and fat intake and allow you to track how close you are to your targets. Your trainer can set up daily habits to help you stay on track with the important metrics to achieve your health goals. Technology can be very impactful and help you keep your health a priority!

For those of you who prefer printed logs, we have supplied those for you as well at the end of this section.

Some important points to record:

Time of eating: Record precisely when you eat or drink anything. You may notice you either consistently eat too late, most of your calories are consumed too late in the day, you’re eating too few meals or that you’re leaving too much time between eating.

What you’re eating and drinking: This data is very important, and you are going to want to be exact and precise. It helps if you record your meal right after you eat. You should record everything you put in your mouth and exactly how much of it. Portion size is critical to help you determine where you can cut back if you need to reduce your caloric intake. Be sure to include water intake. It is helpful to do a summary at the end of each day. That will help you determine on a daily basis if you’re meeting all your requirements.

Where you’re eating and who you’re eating with: You may notice that when you sit in front of the TV you always eat or eat too much. You may discover that on the weekends when you go out with friends you always overeat. You could possibly be a social eater. How you are feeling during each meal: Are you bored, lonely, depressed, excited, happy, stressed out? You may determine that you are an emotional eater and will need to come up with a list of alternative activities to do when you’re experiencing these feelings.

How you are feeling after each meal: Did you overeat or eat just until you were comfortably satisfied? How is your energy? Do you feel good or bad after your meal/snack? Did the foods eaten affect your GI tract in a negative manner?

Activity Log: Record your daily exercise. You may notice that on the days you exercise you eat really well and the days you don’t, your nutrition is very poor.

Goal setting: We like to encourage setting and reassessing goals daily. Everyday decide what your goal for the day will be – drink 8 glasses of water, eat 5 vegetable servings, reduce your portion size etc…Pick an area that you need to focus on and then stick to it for the entire day. At the end of the day, reassess your goal. Did you achieve it? Yes – Congratulations! No – Why not? What can you do tomorrow to ensure you are successful?

Daily gratification: Include a section to record at least one thing that happened or something you saw on that day that you’re grateful for.

Weekly Summary: At the end of the week, calculate how you did in all the important areas.

Printable Activity + Nutrition Log