How can I track my progress with my exercise program?

• Keep a journal: Keep a daily log or journal of your fitness activities, your measurements, your food intake, your sleep habits, and, most importantly, your day-to-day feelings. A growing body of research suggests that moderate, regular exercise can enhance mental well-being by enhancing self-esteem, improving mood, reducing anxiety and stress, and improving sleep. Detail exactly what you are doing to keep fit and how easy or difficult certain activities are, taking special note of whether you were able to do physical activities with greater energy and ease.
• Try on clothes: How your clothes fit can be a great indication of how you're reshaping your body. For instance, if you replace 5 pounds of fat with 5 pounds of muscle, you will look leaner and will have lost inches in key areas because muscle is more dense than fat. The end result is that your clothes should generally hang looser in all the right spots.
• Test your overall fitness: Sign up for a fitness test at a local health club to measure improvements in muscular strength and endurance, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility. By repeating tests at regular intervals, you can compare results from previous tests to assess any changes.

Take the RealAge Test!

One of the best ways to measure fitness progress is how you feel. After a week or so of exercise are you beginning to feel more energized? After a couple of weeks are you noticing health benefits such as improved cardiorespiratory function, strength or weight loss? Beyond how you feel physically and emotionally there are many applications and tools one could use to measure fitness progress.
Logging your exercise routine and noting difficulty will identify progress. There are many software applications that are available on the web or for mobile phones that can track your exercise programming and show progress you have made. Nevertheless, tracking exercise and progression is prudent to your success.