Q: Who was this planner designed for?
The SaltWrap Daily Fitness Planner was designed for the serious athlete or someone who wants to make considerable and dramatic changes. Because this planner requires you to track all exercise AND nutrition for each day, it’s the ultimate accountability partner.
Think of this planner like a program: it’s a 16-week journey. Do your best for 16 weeks, then decide if you want to continue, or if you want to take a break and follow a different program.
Q: If I track my fitness activities every day, I’ll go through three planners per year. That could get expensive… Are there any discounts available?
Our planner is by no means a cheap option. We made the decision during the design process to cut no corners. That’s why it contains more pages than most fitness journals, has premium 80 gsm thick paper, a durable cover, and high-quality binding.
Also, we don’t work with a publisher—we maintain control of the content and production so that we can put exactly what we believe is necessary into the journal.
This makes it more expensive for us, but allows more room for creativity and ultimately provides you with a better product. To put it simply, we believe it is the best training log and food journal you can buy. But we understand your concerns, so we do in fact offer a discount on purchases of 3 or more.
See our Store page for details.
Q: How can I get the most out of this planner?
Consistently fill out all of the daily and weekly pages. Be as detailed as possible, and keep in mind that you will want to reference this months and years from now. After completing the planner, you can write the Start Date and Finish Date on the edge of the bound pages with a Sharpie for quick reference down the road.
Exercise
Q: What is the best way to effectively use the Training Log section?
Start ahead of time by writing down a plan for your next training session: the exercises, set, reps, and any other notes that are important (use the “Plan” column for this).
Then, bring your planner with you when you exercise. You can fill out the Training Completed section as you go, or fill it out after completing your session. During the following session, review your previous work out and look for opportunities to improve.
Q: What about rest days? If I only exercise 3 days per week, what do I do with the Training Log pages on those days?
We debated on this point for some time before finalizing the planner design. We decided that even though most people don’t train every day, there was tremendous value in having a “Training Log” section for each day of the 16 week period—even rest days.
On rest or recovery days, we recommend completing the prompts that are relevant and writing down any notes about your activity, such as if you went for a walk, were mostly sedentary, and if you did any stretching or sports activities.
One of the key strengths of this planner is that it pushes you along each day, for 16 weeks. By creating this planner in a format that enables skipping or not tracking consistently, we would be detracting from one of the most important aspects of this planner: it’s a time keeper, it pushes you along, and holds you accountable.
That being said—this planner may not be the best fit for people who only exercise 2-3 days per week. It is designed for the serious athlete, or someone who is embarking on a program to make radical progress that requires daily activity tracking.
However—If you find daily tracking to be inconsistent with your program or goals, the undated format will allow you to use the planner to track your progress only on days when you exercise.
If you use the planner in this fashion, the weekly review will not necessarily fall on each 7th day.
But, you can still use it as a regular “check in” on your progress.
Q: What should I write in the Notes column of the Training Log?
Write down anything you want to remember in the future, or that you want to track for the particular training session. Some people track rest intervals, which you can write into the notes fields. Others have success writing reminders about proper form or how to perform the exercise.
Q: What should I write in the Comments box at the bottom of the Training Log?
Write anything you feel is relevant, but this section is great for recapping your workout. Think about the things you want to remember for next time, and jot them down in this space.
Diet
Q: How many calories should I eat?
This is highly individual. But depending on your goals, you can develop an accurate calorie goal yourself. See Resources section for more information.
Q: What if I only eat 3 meals and 1-2 snacks?
For the purpose of the Nutrition Log page, treat each meal or snack as a “meal”. So, a handful of almonds or a few grapes in the afternoon could be counted as Meal 3 or Meal 4.
Q: Do I have to track all calories, fat, carbohydrates, and protein that I consume?
Absolutely not. However, we do recommend that you track everything you eat (counting all the calories and fat, carbs, protein) for at least two weeks. This is an eye opener for most people—even those with considerable knowledge of nutrition. If you are trying to lose weight, you may find it easiest to simply track calories (and carbohydrates) instead of tracking all the other nutrients.
We recommend a cyclical approach: when you are not making progress or need to see fast results, track everything and be militant. When you have a program and routine in place that you feel good about, you can get away with tracking less.
This planner doesn’t last forever. It’s 16 weeks—so think of it like a 16 week-long program. After you complete the planner, take some time to assess your results before starting a new program (and filling out a new planner).
Q: How long should I track diet statistics?
This again depends largely upon your goals—but following a program that you can track consistently for 12-16 weeks is a good bet. After this time period, you can take a break from tracking everything and assess your progress.
Then, implement any necessary changes to your program and start over.
Q: How can I count calories and nutrients of foods without nutrition labels?
See Resources section below for calorie counting references of common foods.
Q: Do I need to write down every food I eat, or can I just write down the content of the meal
It’s a good idea (for future reference purposes) to write down at the very least a description of the meal and the main components.
Q: This will require a lot of math… What if I hate math?
It may require some work up front, but the beauty of this planner is that it quickly becomes a valuable reference. After a few days, you’ll notice that you generally eat the same foods over and over (or at least, similar foods). This allows you to quickly reference previous pages instead of calculating nutrition content again.
Q: Do I need to get a scale and weigh everything I eat?
Not necessarily. See the Resources (Daily Fitness Planner Resources) section for a great tool that allows you to accurately estimate the content of foods by referencing its size with other objects (e.g. 2 tablespoons = roughly the size of a ping pong ball).