Analog Diet And Training Planning
There is a plethora of diet and training planning apps available, but let’s be honest, who really uses them? I’ve used everything from MyFitnessPal to Strava and at the end of a few week period, my enthusiasm wanes and I forget to log into them or push my exercises up. I’ve not found their tracking or reporting features of much use after awhile either, so I’m not sure if I even believe in them anymore. Yet, they keep getting created and pumped out to be used, probably because they are so easy to create and people want them.
I suggest we go back to a non-digital way of tracking our daily intakes and that’s using pen and paper again. Sure, nutritional information won’t be readily available, or heart rate performance or calorie burn either, but does that stuff even really matter? We know what’s good for us and what is not. I don’t need to type in that I ate four Snickers bars to know that I’m approaching my calorie limit for the day. Instead, what is better is a more consistent and mindful approach that is easier to manage to provide our best results. That is what all of this in essence is – an exercise in being cognizant of your food/exercise habits.
Below I’ve marked out a weekly tracking process for food and exercise. I use a standard hard bound notebook to do so that I can keep on my desk. I’ve broken it down into six days for a week, taking Sunday off from tracking altogether. I have two lines for each meal at breakfast (B), lunch (L) and dinner (D). There are two because line one is my protein and line two my carb/veggie mix. I go for a 50/50 proportion by volume between the two. I also have one snack (S) line, and two exercise (E) lines to track my AM and PM routines. The line at the top right corner is my weight that morning. I came to this via lots of trial and error and decided this was the only stuff I wanted to track at the end of the day anyway.
Personally I think any office worker or person with a sedentary lifestyle should consider tracking both their food and exercise. Also, anyone who wants to transition from a sedentary lifestyle to racing for fun will find value in it. I can tell you training for triathlons without any regards to nutrition was a massive mistake on my part. Doing two of them at my size caused quite a bit of joint pain in my feet and knees that I could have prevented. I am lucky I didn’t get hurt or something worse given the heat I did these races in. When the 2022 season starts up I plan on being a lot more competitive in them too by following this process.
I hope this is of use to others. It’s not a really difficult thing to come up with, but with all the noise that technology creates in our lives, the old ways can still provide value to us.
