Write it down. These are three words I say all the time. I say it to my clients in parenting class every week; I say it to my coworkers who try to pass off information of importance to me verbally every day; and I say it to myself about just about anything important that comes into my consciousness.

When I first got diagnosed with diabetes, I started writing down everything I ate. I expanded that into writing down my blood pressure, my blood sugar, and my daily weight, as well as eventually my workouts for the day.

At some point I gave it up. I guess it became tedious and had outlived its utility as an exercise, just as how writing down what I spent at one point also became tedious. For some reason, though, I never gave that up.

Since I’ve been going nowhere with my weight loss goals as of late (a bit of exaggeration; I have gone down about five pounds), I’ve decided to give journaling my fitness another shot. It’s not taken long to see that it makes a difference.

Knowing that I have to actually write down somewhere what I eat makes me think twice about eating. No such thing as “cheating”–the only person I cheat is myself–so it’s helping me avoid those office snacks. No skipping a workout and thinking I actually did it–it’s there in black on white.

Perhaps it works better for me because I’m a writer, but I find that journaling makes a difference in getting workouts done and watching what I eat. Give it a try!