THIS IS YOUR YEAR! Get your health & fitness goals on track with our FREE printable fitness planner insert! This cute, daily tracker will journal your food intake, calories (and calories burned), exercise and weight. PLUS, we include FREE PRINTABLE FITNESS STICKERS to use in your Happy Planner!
Do you prefer to watch a short video over reading a wall of text? Well then….we created this short video overview of our free fitness planner just for you! All the links and details from the video can be found in our post below!
First, a little story about me and how this FREE printable fitness planner insert was born. I, like many of you have struggled at various times in my life to get rid of those extra pounds and be consistent with my personal exercise goals. I’ve tried MANY things but the only thing that has worked for me is keeping a detailed health and fitness journal or planner.
So, how do you make a fitness journal that WORKS?
Set personal health and fitness goals and be accountable to those goals by journaling food intake (calories/fat), exercise (and the resulting calories burned) along with weight on a daily basis. We think our free printable fitness planner insert will be an excellent daily tracker for all these important metrics. Whether your goal is weight loss, a more active lifestyle or maintaining recent changes….you will benefit from this fitness planner!
For about 20 years I’ve been keeping all this information haphazardly in either my planner or a spiral notebook. My planner was starting to look a bit cluttered with all this information so I finally created a printable fitness insert for my Happy Planner to share with you guys. I use this exact same format and it works for me so I hope it can work for you! Let’s take a look at how this FREE printable fitness planner insert turned out:
Now, I want to walk you through using this fitness planner insert. I’ll show you how to make the calculations, fill it out everyday and start being accountable for your diet and exercise goals. This has helped me tremendously so I think it could help you too!
|Set Goals & Calculate Caloric Needs Based on Height, Weight & Age|
Your goals may vary but most of our readers are looking to maintain a healthy weight through diet and exercise. First, you need to figure out how many calories you should be eating everyday (and NOT exceeding if you want to maintain or lose weight).
You can figure that out using this calculator from The Mayo Clinic. Make a note of how many calories you should consume per day from this calculator. This number will be used to calculate net calories in your daily journal.
To use me as an example…my calculation comes out to 1700 calories. That means that everything I eat in a single day should not exceed 1700 calories. If I want to lose weight I will have to eat significantly less than 1700 calories per day. In fact, you’ll have to burn about 3500 calories to lose one pound (according to this article from the Mayo clinic). Losing weight is all about burning those calories!
Journal Your Food Intake Daily (Calories In)
It may sound crazy but I write down everything that goes into my body (and the calorie content)….everyday. It’s the ONLY way I’ve been able to maintain or lose weight when I need to. It’s a HUGE accountability tool because weight loss is about calories in and calories out. When you measure what’s going in you know exactly what needs to come out…in the form of activity.
To use me as an example again…if I eat 2000 calories in one day I KNOW I need to burn 300 calories to get down to 1700. So when I hit the gym I have a goal and that’s burning 300 calories. If I’m in weight loss mode I’ll have to burn down below 1700 to make progress on my goals.
Keeping a food journal in your planner can help you understand the effects of what you eat. The first food journal I kept surprised me…I had no idea that the food I was eating (at the time) was so calorie rich.
Keeping this fitness planner prevents you from over-indulging. I know I don’t want to have to log the calorie content of 5 Oreo cookies….so it keeps me in check. Not every food has dietary information (especially fruits and vegetables). So you might want to use the food calorie calculator from WebMD. They even have the dietary information from major chain restaurants loaded in their system.
Track Daily Exercise and Subtract Calories Burned
I use my Apple watch to track daily activity and calories burned. You could also use a Fitbit. Both of these devices calculate calorie burn based on age, weight, heart rate and the specific workout activity. In addition, both of these fitness trackers will calculate how many calories you burn throughout the day (not just your workout). It’s the closest you can get to an exact number for daily calorie burn.
If you don’t have one of these devices you can use this estimating tool from WebMD to see how many calories are burned in some typical workouts. It’s not going to be exact but it will get you close to a number for your daily journal calculations. One thing this tool will not do is tell you how many calories are burned throughout your day. So you’ll only know a rough estimate based on exercise alone.
Now that you have a number for calories burned (or an estimate) you can subtract calories burned from the calories consumed. This gives you net calories which will be journalled directly into our free printable fitness planner. Knowing these numbers everyday will help keep you on track with your goals.
We’ve also included some cute workout planning stickers. You can use these stickers to journal your workouts after they’ve happened in your planner OR use them to plan out future workouts. These stickers color coordinate perfectly with our free printable fitness planner. If you don’t like these you might want to check out these FREE Printabe Kettle Bell Workout Log Stickers we created awhile back. Check’em out below:
Weigh Yourself Daily or Weekly
For some people weighing everyday is too stressful…especially when progress can be slow. I like to weigh everyday but weighing every week may be better for some. In either case, set a consistent schedule for this so you can track your progress and see if your moving in the right direction. Celebrate your wins when they happen! This is hard work and you deserve those atta boys!
You can use our included FREE printable weight tracker stickers to log your weight loss journey in your Happy Planner. These cute little bathroom scale stickers color coordinate perfectly with our free printable fitness planner insert. There’s a space on the scale to record new weight loss milestone or current weight. They’re small so you can place them discreetly in your Happy Planner to track your weight loss journey. Check’em out below:
Find Fun Things to Do to STAY ACTIVE
Most people think that losing weight and getting in shape means hitting the gym for FML workouts and group exercise classes. You don’t HAVE to do that…there are fun ways to stay active.
Try getting back into a sport or hobby you once loved or try a new one. I personally don’t have a gym membership because I choose other unique ways to stay active. I LOVE to roller skate and skateboard 4-5 times a week and also LOVE surfing when the waves are right. You can start playing golf, learn how to stand up paddle board or go hiking but pick up something you LOVE and you know will keep you active throughout the week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I download these FREE printable fitness planner stickers?
Our printable fitness journal stickers come in two different file types. PDFs and transparent PNG files. The transparent PNG files are so you can load them into your Cricut design space software and convert them into SVG cutting machine files for cutting.
SO, make sure that you have a way to view PDFs if you aren’t cutting these out on a cutting machine! Most modern internet browsers are capable of viewing PDFs but if you are on an older computer and can’t get them to open it may be that you don’t have a PDF viewer. You can download a free PDF viewer at the Adobe website.
This printable is offered free of charge to our email subscribers. Simply leave us your name and email address at the very bottom of this page and you’ll receive a password (in your email) and a link to the printables library where these gift tags can be downloaded. Email subscription is FREE!
What do I print stickers on?
I like to print out all my stickers on THIS glossy white sticker paper because it prints true to color. You can also print them on THIS clear glossy sticker paper (which has gloss and prints true to color- unlike matte sticker paper). Clear stickers are easy to place anywhere on your planner without interfering with the functional layout of a planner (lines etc).
I don’t recommend using any kind of matte sticker papers because they absorb more ink and make even the most colorful stickers look faded and pixelated.
How do I cut out printable stickers?
The first option (and probably the easiest) is to use a Cricut Cutting Machine to cut out the stickers. We provide you with a transparent PNG file which can be used with Cricut design space. If you want to use your Cricut cutting machine you’ll need to “import” our transparent PNG file into Cricut design space and turn it into a “print then cut” SVG file.
You can cut these out the old fashioned way using a flexible square punch board, straight line cutter, or scissors.
How do I re-size this fitness insert to fit my planner?
Our health and fitness journal insert is sized at US letter 8.5 x 11 sheet (our photos show it re-sized as an insert in a classic Happy Planner). So unless you are putting these sheets into a binder you might have to resize them to fit in your unique planner. Please refer to THIS re-sizing guide which has many of the most popular planners listed and their equivalent resizing percentage. When you hit the print button you’ll need to adjust your print settings to scale the image down by whatever percentage this sizing guide suggests.
Can I use these in a Home Binder?
Absolutely! This fitness planner printable is sized for US Letter (8.5 x 11 paper). You won’t have to resize anything if these printables are going to be used in a home binder. If this is the way that you’re going to go you have to check out this colorful binder from Avery and the matching divider tabs that go with it.
I hope you love these super cute, FREE printable fitness planner inserts as much as I do! Trust me…fitness planners work! Please leave me a comment below and let me know what you think so I can tailor future content! Tell me what planner inserts you’d like to see in a future release. There’s a good chance I’ll find a way to fit it in! You can also make a request on our Totally Free Printables Facebook Group. Don’t forget to check out these FREE Printabe Kettle Bell Workout Log Stickers
We’re making free planner stickers, inserts and divider tab printables every week so if you don’t want to miss a FLASH freebie or printable then join our thousands of email subscribers by leaving us your name and email at the bottom of this page. You’ll get access to our HUGE free printables library instantly!
I would like to print the Fitness Planner.
Please. No time like the present to start !