We have spoken before about how journaling really is the key to staying on track. I have tried to journal on-line and I've tried spredasheets, but what I am doing now seems to work best for me.
I bought a year a glance calendar that each week spread between 2 pages, but between each month is a monthly view. Every day I journal what I eat and the calories. I log my exercise and my water. Then when I am done, I transfer my totals to the month view. This lets me see/keep my detail, but I can look at the month view to see how I am doing overall for the month. This is really working well for me. I really like it because I keep it in my purse at all times. I don't keep a journal of feeling/thoughts.
I just have a regular journal book that I bought at the stationary store. It was like $6 or something and I bought a green gel pen to go with it, it is my journalling pen. Unfortunately I missed about a month from mid Feb to yesterday. I could use all kinds of excuses but the fact is that I lost interest or got discouraged or something. I don't know really, I was doing pretty good for about the first 6 weeks of the year. I've tried on-line journalling but I couldn't keep up with it. With the shift work I do I just don't always get on-line everyday and then I'd get behind and after a few days it doesn't seem worthwhile anymore.
i have used www.fitday.com for about a year and a half off and on, and i love it. but i like it b/c i can update it while i'm at my desk and keep track of my protein/carbs/calories, etc. it also has a journal function on it, where you can write. i really like it.
I use a program called Healthkeeper Performance Diet... has everything in it I need, it's right where I am for a huge part of the day... and it tracks my food, weight, exercise, body fat, bmi... all of that stuff, plus has a place for goal setting, and graphs to see how I'm doing too I used fitday for a long time too, it's really good for online use, but I wanted something for offline use too...
I journal my thoughts/feelings here. I use a notebook & a pen for my food. It fits in my purse, so I write in it most of the day. I also have a journal for my thoughts/feelings on paper, but it's from 1999. So it's fun to look at it & think how far I've come.
BFL is all about planning ahead. So I plan all my food out for the day and stick it in a spreadsheet. It also has a place for the point challenge plan. I pre-plan my workouts in a workout logs and write down my varitaions, problems, differences, I also through on the bottom of each day how many steps I got in on the pedometer this is new). I have a hard journal at home for my dark thoughts, haven't really had any since I started the Prozac beyond my basic wonderlust. Then I journal here at 3FC and bore people with my day, but I love the support for all my wild thinkings. Plus I can talk about coming to terms with my body and experiments like Naked Yoga.
I am a warrior and documenting my exploits on many fronts. WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!
Miss Chris