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Are you conscious of what you are doing too and for your body? I mean really do you know what you ate today? Do you ever read the packaging? I mean it is easy to say I did so many minutes on the treadmill or elliptical machine, or to say I bench pressed 200 pounds today. I’m a big fan of documentation and feel that the easiest road to success has a pen and a paper somewhere on said road.

But being conscious is easier than writing down everything you eat or do. I for one can recite everything I ate for the last 3 days without looking at any pen or pad, because I make an effort to be aware of what I put in my mouth. I do not randomly pick up those doughnuts from the employee break room and stuff them in my mouth, and if I do I account for them.

This is important because it may keep me from overindulging later that day or night, because I will say to myself “self, you had that doughnut at work you don’t need that piece of cake tonight.” It also works in reverse as well I might say to myself “self, you had a really good day today, live a little have a small piece of cake.”

So these are the reasons it is so important to know what you are doing on a daily basis. An good example of this is just this last week, I went out of town and decided I was going to take a break from my normal eating habits; so that’s what I did. The key is that while I ate things I wouldn’t normally, I did make an effort to pay attention to what I ate.

Now when I take a break from my diet I don’t automatically run to the sweets, I might have more starches or carbohydrates than I might normally have but I don’t eat junk for the sake of eating junk. Well I ate gyros, Philly cheese steaks, some hot wings, even got a Starbuck’s Carmel coffee in. Now while I did not feel as good as I usually do, I did not gain a single pound.

That is right not one single pound! I attribute it to several things, the first of which being that I did not overeat. While I ate things I normally would not, I didn’t eat until my stomach began to hurt, like I use to. I think that was the most important thing just because you are on a break don’t eat the whole bag of cookies, try to practice a little self control!

Another of the reasons I feel that I didn’t gain any weight is because I continued to stay active while I was on vacation. I made sure that I got a few workouts in and when I couldn’t workout I tried to get a walk in or did something that was active. The bottom-line is when you become active, try to maintain the lifestyle even when you are out of your element.

Documentation! I wrote a post about this in the past but I feel that it is important to mention it here again. Document your diet and workout regimen. This will allow you to see why you are succeeding or failing and will allow you make any changes if needed. At some point you will need to address your diet; believe me, what works for a 290 person may not work for a 200 pound person. For example a 290 pound person may lose 2 pounds a week on a 2000 calorie diet, while a 200 pound person might not lose any weight on the same diet. So know what you are doing.

Another good idea is to know what is in what you are eating, so get into the habit of flipping the box over and reading the product packaging. This will give you an idea of how much fat you are consuming or how many servings are in the package. Don’t be fooled by that calorie count that says 50 calories, just to find out that the calorie count is referring to per serving and even worst is finding out you just ate 6 servings in on sitting. That a whopping 300 calories still not bad but far from 50.

So be conscious and you will be on the right path to reach all of your fitness needs!